


The Stygian Court

by campitor



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Cannibalism, Canon Dialogue, Curses, Fantasy AU, Frottage, I will add more tags and characters and relationships as they come up, Intimacy, Multi, Obsessive Hannibal, Original Character(s), Shapeshifting, Slow Burn, Stalking, Supernatural Elements, monster au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-03-17 16:39:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 81,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3536573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/campitor/pseuds/campitor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lecter family spurned a witch long ago and so she gave them two skins to wear: one human, one beastly. </p><p>A supernatural Hannibal AU where Hannibal is a shape-shifter from a cursed family and Will begins to wonder if that antlered man is truly a figment of his fevered imagination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Sleepwalker

I.

Bedelia had been right—his person suit was very well-tailored. 

Hannibal had put a great deal of work into perfecting himself; as a child, he had sketched an image of who he had wanted to be and, with clay and dust and blood, he had made it reality. There had been other hands to help the sculpture take form—hands of black bone and hands of soft flesh—but the work had largely been his. He was proud of his humanity the way a farmer might be proud of a prize winning vegetable. He had raised it from seed, after all, watered it carefully, let it bloom when the time arrived. His person suit was his crowning achievement, a symbol of his mastery over the common man. A symbol of power.

But he had chosen to forgo it this evening in favor of something more primal. Hannibal had replaced his tailored suit of tanned skin and man for something black, something dark as virgin coal pulled from the ground, something wicked and brimming with strength. Hannibal was a man of many facets, many faces, some of which were more human than others. If he did not allow the beast time to breathe then it would not hesitate to tear itself from his body. 

It was the beast who owned him tonight; the beast with its antlers, two ebony spires on its head, with its sharp teeth, with its thirst. The beast’s skin was tighter, fitted along his bones so that every joint was a severe angle. His ribcage branched out down from his chest and formed the dips and rises and mountain valleys. _“’Ribs!’ That was what the witch had cackled,” his father had said as he bounced a young Hannibal on his knees, sneering like the sorceress, “’Ribs so that you never forget how you let your people starve. See how their bellies bulge with hunger?’_

_“And that is why you are such a skinny boy, little buck,” his father had teased, wriggling his fingers—human in that moment, though not always—in a menacing way before attacking the boy’s stomach with tickles._

But those were old times. Hannibal shook his head as if he could physically dislodge the sound of his father’s voice from his head. His time in this body was fleeting; he should enjoy it while he could and dwell on the nostalgia of childhood later. His early years were too saccharine sweet for this body, too pure for a hunt. When it had its way--and tonight, Hannibal allowed it some freedom--, the beast possessed him; it took the bits that were Hannibal Lecter and smothered them, snuffed out the fire of humanity until it was a dimly glowing ember, and replaced it all with brute animal strength and the need to kill and eat. There was nothing soft about this body. It did not deserve the warmth of his fond memories.

With spindly, bony fingers he groped through the foliage, pushing aside bushes and shrubs. His hide, black as the night that had been spilled like ink above him, rendered him unseen in the shadows. His prey would not see or scent him until it was too late. While there was something to be said about the citrus stink of fear that followed a creature that knew it was being stalked, Hannibal had learned long ago through the scrapes of others the consequences of making hunting a game. The mistakes of children brought the wisdom of adults, and he had seen his cousins tease their quarries only to have the beast dart away eventually, lost in the expanse of the woods. Hunting was an exercise or a battle of wits perhaps, but never a time to play. 

That was what he had human hands for, after all. It was no secret to man that monsters lurked among their own, hidden by gentle smiles. He could kill in that body, that form which was softer than this one, and they would, in the end, shrug it off. The world was full of insane men, but they were always far away, distant as neighboring galaxies. And as for the existence of actual beasts, actual monsters that did not wear the skin of man…well, the humans certainly speculated, but it was better that they not know. The ignorance of man, either way, kept his belly full.

As if on cue, his stomach gurgled, and his movements quickened in response. When one adopted the skin of the beast, one had to feed the beast. Its appetite was particular but it could be satisfied with lesser prey, like a dog given a bone to chew at rather than the thigh of the fowl. If a human’s blood could not be spilled, a deer’s would suffice. 

There were many creatures in this forest, one had had not visited before; he knew he would eat well tonight, regardless of his quarry. If Hannibal stilled his breathing, he could hear the snoring of hibernating mice beneath the snow, the crackling of branches where deer walked, and, occasionally, the near-silent glide of an owl. There were many scents too, a bouquet of animal musk that had his mouth salivating--the stink of a startled skunk, the earthy richness of deer manure that would serve as a breadcrumb trail to his prey. And another scent, too, the sweetest, most tantalizing of the bunch. 

Hannibal lifted his nose to the air, pausing in his hike, and inhaled greedily.

Man. 

The beast screamed then, propelling his powerful haunches forward. The side of Hannibal that wore three piece suits, diminished as it was, was caught up in the monster’s bloodlust, yanked along for the ride like a dog on a leash. Desperately he tried to reason with the animal within, using logic where none existed, trying to force his surging body to halt. His instincts and his wits battled for a moment, warring over the luscious scent of human flesh as the trees smudged into one big blur, and then, finally, Hannibal ground himself to a halt.

His sprint had taken him to the edge of the forest. The trees thinned suddenly here, the foliage yawning to reveal a little valley illuminated by the lights of a little house. Hannibal rocked back onto his broad hooves and took a moment to observe. 

He knew that he had traveled far that night, consuming the ground beneath him with powerful, loping strides as he left the buzz of Baltimore in favor of better hunting grounds. He wasn’t familiar with his surroundings, though—it was such a quaint little break from the woods and Hannibal knew that he would’ve remembered it if he had visited it before. The house was so isolated, a dandelion seed flung far away from the plant. If he did not see the lights and the curl of smoke from the chimney, Hannibal might’ve thought that it was empty. 

The scent of man and sweat was very strong here—one of the inhabitants had to be outside. Scanning the landscape, Hannibal snaked his tongue out to lick his lips. A little silhouette was walking around the house. Its gait was crooked, shaky; there was a hesitation to every step, a peculiar stiffness. The monster wondered if he stumbled upon the house of some old couple trying to escape the noise of the city. Easy prey, then; Hannibal rarely felt bad about killing the elderly. There were rules to beasthood, of course: one must always prey on the old, weak, and ill before the healthy and young. 

He watched as the man disappeared around the corner of his house and then reappear on the other side a moment later. The same stiff gait on the same oval circuit, looping over and over. Curious and hungry, he crawled closer, and the light of the open field illuminated his form, half man, half animal. His hind legs and feet were those of a stag, muscular haunches and cloven hooves. Two antlers rose from his brow, branching and tapering into six curling points. His torso and face were those of a man; though gaunt, one would recognize him as Hannibal Lecter should they be unfortunate enough to cross his path when he wore this skin. 

He was a predator in this form, one of legend and lore, and he preyed on the creature he masked as during the day. This pacing stranger had the misfortune of being Hannibal’s next snack. 

As he stalked nearer, the scent of sweat became overwhelming. Hannibal wrinkled his nose and stooped lower to the ground, his belly almost flush with the snow, and began to close the last meters between the man and him. Surely he stuck out like a sore thumb here, raven-black against a landscape of white. But even as he closed the distance between him and the stranger, they did not seem to notice his presence. Too caught up in whatever they were doing, apparently, to realize that there was a predator in the field. Getting closer though he realized that this was not an old man preforming some bizarre ritual against arthritis but rather a young one, perhaps in his late thirties. He was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs, both of which were mottled with blotches of perspiration. When the man walked toward him, completing another lap around his house, Hannibal could see the whites of his eyes beneath his fluttering lashes. 

Another loop. Fascinated, Hannibal followed him on his one, looking to see if there was another interruption in the cycle or if the man would notice now, finally. There was none and he did not—the man kept striding forward with those shaky yet purposeful steps. He was sleepwalking, Hannibal realized, probably caught in the throes of some nightmare.

This was interesting indeed. He wondered what had driven the man’s unconscious body outside. Was he being chased in the jail of his dreams? 

The beast was snarling, angry that the side that lusted for blood had been trumped by a psychiatrist’s innate curiosity. It was hungry, starving, and yet its meal was being delayed. Hannibal bade it peace and took another whiff of the air. There was sickness there, spicy and sweet like cinnamon. It was so faint though. The doctor wondered if the man was recovering or succumbing and if his fever had driven him out into the snow. 

He let the man walk on without him, watching him as he went. The sleepwalker would be easy prey; he wouldn’t feel a thing as sharp teeth sunk into his neck. The animal side of him was delighted by this thought; an easy meal meant that he could spend longer in the piercing cold, exploring the forest and snapping at the lesser predators who tried to approach him. But for some reason Hannibal could not bring himself to chase the stranger down. This man was curious and the doctor was drawn to him as people are drawn to a pacing lion at a zoo. He could be an interesting little case study—did he sleepwalk often, wondered Hannibal? Where did he go? Where did those unsteady feet, surely cold from the snow, take him every night? He inhaled again and considered the tang of the other man’s illness. His stomach was furious, growling so harshly that he wondered if it would snap the other from his stupor. Hannibal narrowed his eyes, considering, and then turned back around in the direction of the forest.

No, he couldn’t kill him tonight. It would be a shame to lose this little tidbit of entertainment. There were plenty of deer in the wood; that would be more than enough prey to keep the disgruntled beast satisfied and full. Later this week he would pull one of the cuts from that arrogant shopkeeper out of his freezer and prepare it as penance for this act of mercy. Then he would visit this house again and if the man was inside, so be it—he would eat him. But if he walked that night too, hounded by some creature in his mind, well…

Either way, with a proper sacrifice he and the beast could live in harmony again, man and wendigo, wendigo and man. 

xxxxx

Hours later, Will would be woken by the morning light bleeding into the sky and the panicked whining of his pack. 

Violently he came back to himself, tripping over his own feet and falling forward onto the ground, cheek bouncing against the dirt. Face full of snow, Will contemplated how he got here and ran through a mental checklist of what had happened yesterday, what time he had gone to bed, how much he had drank as he had worried the pages of a Steinbeck novel, not really reading the words so much as staring at the shapes they made. He laid there for a moment until the cold became unbearable and then slowly eased himself up, lifting his hand to rub at a tiny scrape on his cheekbone. When he pulled his fingers away, he stared stupidly at the blood on them.

The sleepwalking was becoming a problem. First it had just been around his house and he would wake standing by his kitchen sink. But lately his feet had been bringing him outside and when he woke they would be tinged blue. He wondered if he should make an appointment to get himself checked out; he hadn’t felt well lately, and most mornings he woke up with a dull and thudding headache that persisted throughout the day. 

The cacophony of the dogs was raising to a fevered pitch and Will supposed that he ought to go reassure them that he hadn’t wandered off to far. As he stood, he noticed that a ring had been dredged through the snow. He hadn’t gone far at all, then. Will stared at the path and tried to remember his dreams last night. 

Squinting now, Will swore he could see another ring around the one he had presumably made. It was far less defined, but it looked like he had strayed from his path for a few circuits. He walked over to the edge of his path and bent down to observe the footprints parallel to his.

Hoof prints. That was strange. Will wondered what sort of deer had been bold enough to accompany him as he did his laps. Wondered if even the animals felt pity as they watched him stumble. An irrational twinge of anger pulsed in his head.

With a yawn, he straightened up again, raising his arms above his head and letting his shoulders loosen up. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes and making soft, drowsy grunts as he stretched his cold and stiff body, Will Graham watched the sun ooze up from the trees, filling his little valley with light. Everything—the sleepwalking, the scrape on his face, the chill in his toes, and the presence of a cervid stalker—could all be worried about later. 

Right now, he needed the peace that two Aspirins and a coffee would bring his throbbing skull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! This is my first foray into writing a full series. Thanks for reading; your comments and kudos are appreciated. I have a rough idea of where I am going with this--it will follow parts of canon (mostly season one stuff) but will eventually take a pretty strong divergence. 
> 
> My tumblr is pigwingstoheaven.tumblr.com. Feel free to send me requests there!


	2. Christmas 1968

II.

Christmas Night, 1968  
Lecter Castle, Lithuania

It was Christmas. The meat had been carved and all of the gifts had been torn open by pudgy little hands; now, the adults were talking in low murmurs over glasses of brandy and wine and the children, fueled by the copious amounts of sweets they had eaten, were tearing around the estate, hounded by their watchful nannies.

The adults spoke of older times, better times. They compared badges of honor won in wars and lessons learned in childhood, stinging then but sweet now. Some of the men boasted of hunts, stretching them into sagas that would make a Norseman jealous while their wives, many of whom had been on these expeditions with their husbands and knew the truth behind these un-illustrious events, cast each other knowing glances and upturned lips. The women knew that there was greater value in what wasn’t said than what was. They did not need to say that there had been two men, not six, and that it had been they who had struck the killing blow after their husbands had toyed with their prey for too long. 

A thick blanket of nostalgia had been laid over the adults and they were all content to huddle down in its warmth, forgetting the snow outside and their children in the other room. But finally a crash came from upstairs that was loud enough to rouse them from the histories they were weaving. “Go see what those kids are up to, Hannibal,” growled Robert Lecter as he filled his snifter up again with brandy. The others nodded, swirling their drinks around in their glasses and trying their best to ignore the ruckus upstairs. When raising a child who shapeshifted, one often had to tune out the sound of shattering pottery and high pitched squeals that would travel through the house. What good was a nanny if she couldn’t clean up the messes that the little monsters made?

Hannibal Lecter the Seventh, who owned the estate during this time, grinned good-naturedly at his brother. “Oh, you always get so annoyed with them. It’s Christmas, let them have their fun.”

“Exactly—it’s Christmas. They should not be wrestling like wild animals.”

Hannibal VII was about to retort, an answer perched on his tongue, when a shrill cry came from upstairs. “Daddy!” He sighed, downed the last of his brandy, and then smiled and stood, buttoning the jacket of his suit and holding up his hands in surrender. “Ah, there’s my cue anyways.” He was an impressive man, standing at 6’3”, still lank and gangly even at 40 years old. His lean frame hid his true strength; though he was gawky and awkward in his form, his gait still held the sensuous smoothness of a predator as he stalked away from the table. 

He took the stairs two at a time as he went to investigate the ruckus. The sound of laughter led him to one of the many large sitting rooms in the mansion. Standing in the doorway, he watched two of his nephews scrabble against the floor, one pinned by the other. A flustered maid was trying to separate the pair with a wooden spoon. “Goodness, what is all of this excitement?”

His daughter, a petite girl with a mane of flaxen ringlets and a constantly flushed complexion, immediately flung herself into her father’s arms upon seeing him enter the room. The little girl was dressed in a red frock with a skirt that bloomed like a rose. Hannibal VII picked the child up and pecked her nose with a kiss. “What’s wrong, Mischa?”

“Hannibal bit me.” 

“Again?”

“Mm-hm!” Indignant, Mischa buried her head in her father’s chest. Hannibal VII cast his son a look from across the room. The younger Hannibal, who had been staring at his father since he had entered the room, grinned very sheepishly, flashing the same sharp teeth that had gotten him in trouble. 

“Poor little bird. Your hand again? Let’s take a look, shall we?” He took her little palm, sticky from dessert, and examined the damage done. There weren’t even indentations from her brother’s teeth, but he humored her nonetheless. “Well, we won’t have to amputate it. Go back to your cousins, now. I’ll talk to your brother.” He kissed her on the forehead and set her down, watching as she toddled back to where her cousins sat looking at the pages of a heavy tome of illustrated fables.

Ambling over to his elder child, Hannibal VII donned a mask of sternness that immediately cracked as he lay a hand on his son’s hair. “Watch those teeth.” His chiding was gentle; in truth, Hannibal VII was very proud of his son and tended to let his misbehavior slide. The boy was as quick with his studies as he was on the chase, and he was eager to learn both the ways of academia and the beast. The elder Lecter delighted at every dead fowl his son presented him and boasted to any of his relatives who would listen about how his son was a clean killer, quick and efficient and totally devoid of any of the savagery that young wendigos, still unsure of their own power, often possessed. He would not blame his son for savagery—he remembered those early years when the black skin was still new and mesmerizing, teeth as sharp as knives even though they were still only for milk—for savagery was their nature, and control was a lesson that must be learned through scrapes and bruises. His brother had once suggested that there was something wrong with the boy; perhaps, Robert had said blithely, his son’s blood was diluted. Hannibal VII had cackled at the thought and wondered if perhaps his older brother was jealous of his lineage. Running his fingers through his son’s hair, he asked, “Why did you nip at her anyways?”

Hannibal the Eighth’s smile was all teeth. He was a spitting image of his father aside from the shade of his hair, a mixture between his mother’s chestnut brown and his father’s blonde. “I just wanted to see if she would tattle again.”

His father pushed his head down in a half-hearted display of dominance. They were a physical people; even when they wore the skin of man, they postured like animals. “Naughty boy. Be nice to your sister.”

“I am!”

“Oh, I know it. You would do anything for you, wouldn’t you? Bring her the moon if she asked? Steal the Queen’s crown jewels? That’s a good boy. Family must look out for each other—you, and your sister, and all of your cousins, you must all look after one another, you understand?” His son nodded. It was a lonely world for their kind, thought the elder Lecter as he watched the fledgling beasts wrestle. He had heard of others in North America, people of a tribe far older than the Lecter lineage who also carried the blood, but the Lecters held a certain indifference towards America and so they never visited. 

Hannibal VII watched the nannies struggle with the boys for another moment before walking over and pulling his squirming nephews apart by the necks of their shirts, announcing, “I think it is time for a story.” 

The children—there were seven of them, including his own—dropped whatever they were doing and scrambled over to crowd about the gangly man’s legs. Hannibal VII laughed, released the two wriggling boys whose collars he still held, and fell back into the chair that one of the dutiful nannies had brought for him. Theatrically he rubbed as chin as the children settled. “I wonder which one I should tell?”

“The witch!”

“The witch!”

“Tell the one about the ugly witch!”

“Oh, that one again?” Hannibal VII made a show of considering it. “Well, I suppose the crowd must be pleased.” The man spread his legs apart and leaned forward, his hands settling lightly on his knees like birds on a branch, ready to fly up and paint a picture of the tale in the air before him. 

“We’re old blood—surely your parents have told you that. But there are older things in this world, things as old as the bedrock, as old as the heart of the earth. Magic is one of these very, very old things, and most of the time magic is content to stay quiet, sleeping in the trees and stones and heavens. But sometimes someone comes along who feels as if they must disturb it.”

“Like an ugly witch!”

“Yes, like an ugly witch. Have you met Jadvyga the enchantress, children? Has she come to your homes and put her clammy hands on your brows? Has she invited herself over to dinner and insulted your mama’s cooking and told you to sit up straighter?” Hannibal VII shuddered and wrapped his arms around himself. “Oooh, I have! And when I first saw her, I thought that the cemetery’s crypt had opened up, I did!” The children giggled. Simonetta Sforza-Lecter, wife to Hannibal VII and mother to his children, had come to check on her family; she rolled her eyes at her husband’s theatricality. 

“Well, many, many decades ago, Jadvyga preformed old rites and drank old potions and danced around a fire and she took some of that magic for herself. She didn’t do much with it at the beginning; mostly, she just sat around her house trying to figure out the limits of her new powers. But eventually she began to offer her services to the public. Simple tasks at first—mending things, healing colds, pulling water from dry earth, little tasks that the villagers needed done. The old Lecters—Antonius and Elisabetta Lecter, your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents—knew about her, but they were content to let her slide, so to speak. After all, she wasn’t doing any harm yet. 

“But there were a few bad years, years where there was too little rain and too many frosts, and slowly the harvests became less plentiful. The crops died. The soil became weary and tired. Jadvyga tried to make the dirt healthy again, but not even a witch can work if she has no materials. One year, their harvest only lasted them into the late fall. The people of the village had to slaughter all of their livestock and pull rations up from their stores. They survived that first winter of starvation, and their bellies growled but they did not yet grow fat with hunger.”

“Why would a hungry person be fat?”

“Shush. It is rude to interrupt. Where was I? Ah—the next winter.

“Well, the year turned over again and winter arrived again. The harvest had been pitiful, barely enough to last them through the autumn. The villagers had no new livestock because they had slaughtered all of their hens and goats last winter. So, desperate and hungry, they went to the witch and they said, ‘Jadvyga, why can’t you give us food?’ And she told them what I just told you—not even a witch can work when there is nothing. When there is not even gristle to spare, a witch cannot conjure up a meal to feed the hungry.

“Meanwhile, the Lecters were holed away in their estate—this very castle!” He paused and watched the young eyes roam about the room in shocked delight. “They had food because they had money, and they could buy what they did not have anymore. The Lecters were not starving, though their resources were stretched thin. But they had ways to survive even as their coffers dwindled…” Hannibal VII caught the eyes of his wife, noting that they held a warning. He licked his lips and continued without elaborating, heeding her glance. The children did not notice the pause; they hung off of every word he spoke, every breath he took, and did not notice that the story was as full of holes as an old blanket.

“But the people of the village were growing restless. They were starving. Some of them looked to the castle on the hill and they wondered how the Lecters were surviving the winter. Money, they would grumble to themselves. Yet, none dared to suggest that the village appeal to our ancestors. They did not voice their frustrations. Some were afraid to; others did not want to stoop to asking for help. Fear and pride rendered them mute.

“Jadvyga had been thinking this whole time. Plotting, little ones! She was angry that the Antonius had never invited her to his estate to work her miracles; she did not appreciate his disdain towards magic and the world of spirits. So, when people came to have ingrown toenails removed and warts wished away, she would ask them, ‘Say, haven’t you ever thought about asking the Lecters for food? They certainly have enough.’ And the people felt better hearing someone else bring up the Lecter’s prosperity, so eventually they gathered as a village and marched up the hill, their clothes worn and their bellies hungry. 

“What were they expecting, children? No one likes a beggar and the winter had not been any easier on the Antonius and his family. They were turned away at the gate and told not to return. Our family had nothing for them, children, nothing but bones sucked dry of marrow and a few handfuls of flour. Antonius had spent the winter watching his purse fill with dust instead of gold. So, they marched back down that hill like a funeral procession as Jadvyga watched from her window. A month later, after a series of deaths, they tried once more at the witch’s insistence. They begged and wept and pleaded, but still Antonius had nothing for them. He sent them away as he had the month before, and again Jadvyga watched their sad little parade from her house.

“Oooh, that made the witch mad, yes it did! She kept trying to whisper all sorts of nasty things into the ears of the villagers. She suggested a revolt! A _revolt_! She offered to arm the men and protect them from harm if they laid siege to our estate. But all of her poisonous words were in vain. The people were tired. They did not have the strength nor the will to rise up against our family.

“One of the servants—a relative of some of the women in this house, I’m sure—had heard rumors that Jadvyga was planning something. When she went down to market each week, she would hear the vile ideas that the witch was spreading. Rumors of terrible and awful things. Stories based on whimsy. Ideas of violence.” Hannibal VII licked his lips. One of the children opened his mouth to ask what sort of rumors were being spread, but thought better of interrupting his uncle again. Hannibal VII continued, “So she went to her master and told him of the drama unfolding in the village below, and Antonius knew that he must confront the witch. Jadvyga was about to get what she wanted—a meeting with our kin.

“Perhaps if this little audience had been arranged sooner, she would not have done what she did. Perhaps the wait had made her frustrated or the hunger mad. Who can say why a witch does what she does? But Jadvyga had plans for this meeting, children, dark and sinister plans. The witch had discovered tomes of old and powerful magic, magic never meant to be used on man. The Lecters had, in her eyes, let the people starve and, even worse, they had wounded her pride. She is not a woman to forgive easily.

“Antonius had arranged for a great feast to be held in her honor, hoping that it would please her. But when she came and saw the bounty of food on the table, she was disgusted, for he had so much when others had so little. She knocked his food to the ground with a crash! How ungrateful, hmm? Jadvyga shouted and shrieked about his sins against the village, his turpitudes against humanity, his lack of respect for old and powerful forces—the list went on and on! And soon Antonius grew impatient with her boorishness and ordered his men to send her away. But that just made the witch angrier; she was fuming then, children! And then, invoking old and dark magic, she said, ‘Antonius, your blood is cursed!’ And poof! It was not Antonius standing there any more, children, but an antlered man, a skeleton cloaked in black skin!

“The man and his guards were so shocked that they let the witch get away. Elisabetta hid beneath the table as her husband staggered around the dining room on cloven feet. It was later, much later, when his anger had subsided, that he discovered that he could become a man once again. And soon he found that he could assume either form when he wished, though sometimes the beast clawed its way out of his body as if it were rabid. When his children were born, they too had magic in their veins. And so the witch’s curse traveled through generations, all the way down to your parents and you.

“And that, little ones, is why you have two skins.” 

“Oh, is that how that story goes?” came a voice from the doorway. Hannibal VII raised his head in confusion, for he had not seen another figure enter the room. Jadvyga the witch stood next to his wife with her arms crossed over her chest, tangled in the heavy shawls and cloaks she wore. “I seem to remember it differently, Hannibal.” 

“Ah, look children! Speak of the devil and his horns shall appear. Jadvyga, I did not think you were coming this Christmas—it’s such a hard journey from your house. And this snow! Hasn’t it been terrible?” Hannibal VII had visibly paled. He stood from his chair too quickly and nervously wrung his hands as he walked over to the witch, a lopsided and wavering grin stretching his face. Behind him, the children scooted around on the behinds, gawking at the ancient woman. Very softly, one of them asked his brother, “Shouldn’t she be dead?”

The witch glowered at that but said nothing, choosing to focus on the man whose nerves she had ignited. “I try to stop by every Christmas, as you should know. Just because I choose to skip the dinner doesn’t mean I can’t join for the rest of the festivities.”

“Of course, of course. And you are always welcome, my dear woman. Well, little mongrels, the adults have business to take care of.” The gathering of bantam monsters groaned collectively but resumed whatever they were doing before, namely attempting to pin one another against the furniture. Their inquisitive eyes watched the witch as she hobbled from the room.

Hannibal VIII, however, trotted after his father, curious about this woman. The boy had met the witch a few times before, but the memories were often hazy with the fog of childhood and their meetings had been brief. As a cultured boy of 7, he knew a little more of the story than that his father was willing to tell to the younger children. There were darker details lurking in every word Papa did not say. 

Hannibal VIII knew, as well, that the witch had a habit of giving gifts, and he was curious what she might have for him. But even more than he wanted to receive a gift, Hannbial VIII wanted to ask the witch how Antonius and his family had survived. Papa had spoken truthfully—the winter was hard on them as well. Their coffers dried up and spiders took up residence in their pantry. But even in the dustiest tomes he discovered in the library, Hannibal VIII found that any explanation for what they ate when the food ran out was curiously omitted. Did they eat dirt, wondered the boy? Did they too grow fat with starvation? Did they hire the witch but fail to pay? Jadvyga would surely know. If she didn’t, then who would?

 

Silently he trailed his parents as they led the old woman downstairs, smiling to himself as he watched his father take her elbow. Papa had been so flustered when he knew the witch was there; he knew Jadvyga wouldn’t appreciate the watered-down tale that the Lecters had been telling their children for decades. Hannibal VIII knew that she was a woman who appreciated the sharper side of justice and, in her eyes, justice had been delivered at that fateful meeting centuries ago. The boy found that he couldn’t quite decide if he agreed with her. Was Antonius truly expected to feed the starving village after his name had been slandered and his own wares depleted? It made for an interesting internal debate, a stretching and working of the muscles of philosophy. 

Papa was shooting the breeze, yammering away as he often did when he was nervous. He was a brilliant man when his nose when in buried in books. Socially, however, he was oblivious as a child; he had very few graces besides a friendly disposition. The witch would always retort with cold and bitter replies and occasionally she would interrupt him to comment on some feature of their house or of his outfit that displeased her. 

“Your son must be quite the hunter,” she said as they descended the stairs. “He’s been following us so silently for a minute or so now.”

“My son?” Hannibal VII whipped his neck around to discover his son a few steps behind him. The child smiled sweetly, earning a sour look from his father. “Well, he should be back with the other children, but if he wants to bore himself with the matters of adults, he is welcome to.”

“That did not answer my question. Is he a good hunter?”

“Oh, yes. He brought home a quail the other day. It was a very fat bird!” The journey down the steps was torturously slow. Hannibal VIII suspected that Jadvyga, who had extended her life by centuries and surely, in that span of that time, had learned to repair worn joints, was giving his father the runaround. After all, the more time he was forced to spend with her, the more he would blather, and soon enough he would give her an excuse to unleash her fearsome wrath on him. 

“How wonderful,” she purred, turning her head to glance at the child. “Most his age just eat their quarries raw.”

“Let me tell you something, Jadvyga—this boy brought his first kill home with him. Hadn’t even decapitated the bird! A marvel!” 

“A marvel indeed. Put on the tea kettle, Simonetta. Make it right this time--honey in it, and that's it. None of that disgusting deer milk your kind drink.” 

Hannibal VIII watched his mother scurry away. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Jadvyga immediately turned around to face him. She loomed over him like an oak, and Hannibal felt himself grow smaller, dwarfed by her crooked smile, by the hard glint of her eyes. “Open your mouth, little one. Let me see your teeth.” 

The boy hesitated, his jaw stubbornly refusing to open. As his father opened his mouth to prompt him to listen to the witch, she lashed a hand out, sticking two fingers between his lips and twisting his mouth open for him. Jadvyga bent over and observed his teeth, humming in approval by what she saw. Hannibal VIII was unsure exactly what secrets his teeth held that pleased the witch so. 

“You’re 8?” The boy shook his head as best as he could with Jadvyga’s bony fingers in his mouth. “7, then. You’re losing your milk teeth early. It’s a good sign. Hannibal—no, not you, your father—go back to the table. I’ll join you in a moment. I want to talk to your son for a minute.”

Hannibal VII clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back on his heels. “Perhaps I can stay?”

“Oh, go fuck off. You’re more nervous than a green pony.” Casting his son an apologetic look, Hannibal VII all but ran off, leaving the witch and his child standing at the foot of the stairs alone. With a grin, Jadvyga withdrew her fingers from the boy’s mouth, wiping them on the breast of his shirt. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Hannibal. You’re growing up so quickly. I'll bet you’re more mature than your cousins, hm?”

“I’m more interested in my studies than they are in theirs.”

“That’s a good boy.”

“When I’m bored with my tutor I just run away to the library.”

“Do you now?” The witch began to wander the space they were in, running her fingers along the paintings and antiques that filled the room with tasteful clutter. She hesitated on a portrait of a stag-man in a suit, peering up at it with a bemused expression on her face. 

“That’s my grandpa,” the boy chirped helpfully. 

“Yes, I know. I know everyone in your family.”

Hannibal VIII watched her walk around the room, rubbing the toe of his shoe against the floor. “I know some things about you.”

“From your father’s propaganda?”

“No. I’ve found books in the library about our family’s history.” 

“Mmm.” 

“You were angry because you did not think Antonius Lecter was treating the people fairly. They had very little to eat.”

“They had nothing to eat.”

“What did you have?”

Jadvyga thought about this for a moment. It was a clever question, though she wondered if it was born from the forthrightness of a child or the curiosity of someone beyond his years. “Just my magic.” 

“But I read the books. Antonius was running out of food. They were hungry too.”

No response from the witch. “How did they survive? How did they get food?”

Jadvyga paused before a statue of an ebony stag. Childish curiosity, then. Only a child would not be satisfied with a mere answer of “they survived”. They were always asking questions. 

But this question had a dark answer; the witch wondered if the little boy realized that. She gathered her heavy cloaks around herself and turned to face him again. “Have you antlers started growing in yet?”

“No, madam. My head gets itchy, though.” 

She grinned when the boy did not press her for an answer to his question. At least his father was raising him to mind his manners. She observed the masked disappointment on his face for a moment and then strode over to stand before him, reaching her hand out to touch the top his head. One day he would be grateful that she had held her poisonous tongue. “Soon, then. I have a gift for you, little buck. Hold out your hand.” 

The child wriggled in excitement and stuck out his hand, his irritation forgotten. The witch reached into her cloaks of blood and night, grasping for a pocket, and then pulled out a small doll made of red fabric. Pressing it into Hannibal’s hand, she said, “It’s from America.”

Carefully Hannibal turned the doll over in his hand, running his fingers along the beading and stitching. “What is it?” 

“It’s a gift.” 

He frowned at her answer. “But why this?” Jadvyga grinned and tucked her hands back into her shawls.

“I do not give things away for fun. You will have to think about it. It’s a voodoo doll. A little trinket from Louisiana, where there are magics meant to heal and protect.”

A servant had come to fetch her for tea; Jadvyga turned to leave and then paused to offer the child one more insight. “Perhaps it is not the only bauble from Louisiana that you will pick up in your life, Hannibal.” Then, the witch followed the servant out of the room, leaving the boy to stare at the charm in his palm. 

xxx

The Present  
Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore

Hannibal had yet to decipher the gift. It sat on a shelf in his study, and when people asked about it, he would say that he picked it up on vacation a long time ago. He looked at it often and he thought of old, old memories, like Christmas dinners many years ago. Most of these childhood memories had a sour flavor. Hannibal would often rouse them from their crypts and pray that they might be joyous once again, but they always tasted of ash. He would look at the little doll and feel the strong urge to rip it from the glass cabinet it was displayed in and throw it into the trash to be forgotten. It reeked of simpler times. 

It had been one of the last Christmases he had spent with his family. He often wondered if the witch had known.

When he stepped into the halls of his memory palace, Hannibal would spend long minutes staring at the curious little boy he had once been. As he did, phantom fingers would fill his mouth, wrenching his jaw apart, running their tips against the valleys and ridges of his teeth. There had been a question there; Hannibal recognized it now. The witch had made an inquiry that Hannibal had not heard as a child.

If she came again, he suspected that he still would not know the answer to what she was asking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated. I hope the flashback wasn't terrible.
> 
> I'm going away for spring break so there may not be an update until the beginning of April. I'd like to get a short chapter up before my flight leaves this weekend, but no promises (you can blame the giant phylogenetic tree I'm building). 
> 
> Feel free to shoot me a message or request at pigwingstoheaven.tumblr.com!


	3. Will Graham, Awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know when you write something, and rewrite it, and add to it, and write it again, and you still can't make it so you're happy with it? Yeah, that was what happened here. I apologize for the wait (I was also soaking up in the sun in Florida and burning half my skin off)!

III.

Hannibal knew that he was in for a treat when an FBI agent showed up in the waiting room of his practice.

Jack Crawford was built like a bulldog, stocky and powerful. He was a man of good taste, much to Hannibal’s approval, and the lines on his face gave him the appearance of a sage, of a man beyond his years in sorrows seen. Crawford was a leader of the highest caliber, as grizzled and hardy as a general. When he stepped through the door of Hannibal’s office, he immediately owned the space and Hannibal felt a twinge of the animal desire to express dominance bubbling in his stomach, spreading to his fingers. The doctor did his best to swallow his irritation as he closed the door, but could not help the bite of annoyance that stained his tone as he asked, “So, may I ask how this is all about me?”

“You can ask,” Crawford retorted, peering around the room with a strange wariness, “But I may have to ask you a few questions first. You expecting another patient?” 

“We’re all alone.”

Crawford looked flustered despite his stoicism, Hannibal noted with glee. His roaming eyes betrayed his discomfort in the doctor’s space. The office was meant to be intimidating, despite being for psychiatric work; this was his haven, after all, a symbol of his accomplishments, his wealth, his mastery over the hitches and hiccups of the human mind. Over manipulation too, but this was a secret he held close to his breast, for his penchant for pulling at the strings of someone’s conscious kept him fed. He wanted his patients, fragile and oblivious, to feel unsettled when they entered here. The humans, though they did not know it, told their most treasured secrets to a higher being, one who had made hunting them into a sport; as they looked around the room, eying the expensive artwork on the wall, the sketches of scalpels and knives, Hannibal wanted them to feel like prey. Any one of them could end up on his plate, after all.

“No secretary?” 

“She was predisposed to romantic whims.” She had been a pretty young woman, fresh out of college and trying to make a buck to pay for grad school, willing to charm and chatter in hopes of a raise. Hannibal had simply had to smile at her, lean in, let his hands snake out as quick as vipers to grab her neck, and _twist_ … 

He had used her credit card to buy a one way ticket to London. The family did not understand the cover, had never heard of a lover in England that she had met studying abroad, but they had accepted it. Love, Hannibal had said to them with a solemn smile, is quite a force, isn’t it?

He followed Crawford as the agent meandered through his office, always a pace behind, almost stalking him. Hannibal’s eyes were characteristically cold, his posture both rigid and fluid, sinuous and controlled. Occasionally he snuck a glance to the back of Crawford’s neck and traced the bumps of his delicate vertebrae with his eyes. His steps behind him were steady and slow. Patient. The tap of his shoes against the hardwood echoed with hunger and longing.

Did this agent know that he had walked in the lair of an apex predator? Did he know that blood had been scrubbed from the very floors he walked on? Maybe that was why he was here. Maybe Crawford had heard rumors of death and shadowy beasts, and maybe, _maybe_ , he had performed a miracle worthy of sainthood and traced the wendigo—the beast of Baltimore’s night, known by all as the Chesapeake Ripper, thought to be a man of flesh and bone and emotion like the rest of them—to this office. Hannibal waited with baited breath for the first utterance of an accusation. He waited for an excuse to feel the dips and rises of Crawford’s spine beneath palms as black as ink. He was the Ripper, composed and charming, but he was also the beast, a slave to baser instincts, and a dark part of him grew ravenous as the agent walked in and out of the motes of light streaming in.

Crawford made a living of capturing dangerous men; surely he would recognize when he was in the lair of one. He kept stalling, perhaps trying to ease himself into his surroundings. It was clever, and Hannibal had to remind himself that the agent was a man of quick wit too; Crawford, perhaps, could see the posturing behind every piece of furniture. The stocky man paused before a drawing table, a soft noise of exclamation leaving his lips, and peeled the wax paper back from one of Hannibal’s drawings. “Are these yours, doctor?”

“Among the first.” He itched to slap Crawford’s hand away. He wanted to tell him to _get to the point_ , that he has eaten people for pettier crimes than wasting his time, that his FBI badge does not intimidate nor impress him. Instead, to busy himself, Hannibal picked up a pencil and scalpel. The metal glinted as he pressed it along the tip of the pencil, flaking away a curl of wood. The shaving and a small shower of lead dropped to his desk and were swept away with his pinky. With the critical eye of a surgeon, he observed the sharp tip of the pencil in the light of the window. 

Crawford admired the rendering of Hannibal’s old boarding school and said, “I understand why your drawings earned you an internship at Johns Hopkins.”

And there it was—a dropped ball, bouncing to a stuttering stop on the floor, a slip of detail that showed that Crawford has _researched_ him. Hannibal’s face twitched minutely and his fingers tighten around the scalpel. The presentation of detached fact was an old trick; it let a person know that they were either under review or they were being venerated. He knew that an FBI administrator would have no taste for apple polishing. _Here_ was the accusation he has been waiting for. Hannibal rolled his shoulders back, snaking his tongue out to lick his lower lip. He wondered how Crawford found him.

“I am to beginning to suspect that you are investigating me, Agent Crawford.” 

Crawford’s laugh was like nails against a chalkboard. Hannibal stood there rigidly as the sound died in the cavernous room and forced himself to drop the scalpel back to his desk. The laughter was good, he reassured himself as he tried to unclench his shoulders. It meant that the Ripper could live another day. 

Crawford gave the pencil drawings one more approving glance before turning to the man behind him. It seemed he was finally ready to cut to the chase, niceties over and done with, his discomfort dissolved. “No, no, not at all. I’d like you to help me with a psychological profile, Doctor. I asked Alana Bloom—you remember her, I’m sure—to do it, but she said that wants to maintain a ‘professional curiosity’ about the subject and maintain my reputation.” The sentence ends with another laugh. Hannibal blinked and offered up a less than genuine smile. The mention of his old student softened his ire some, but he feels compelled to hold Crawford at an arm’s length, torn between anger at the man's reaction and disappointment that he would not be able to enjoy his blood today.

“This is a friend of hers, then. Someone she is protective of at the FBI, perhaps.” 

“Yes. His name is Will Graham. He’s a teacher at the academy and a profiler, occasionally.”

“Occasionally? When he grows bored of his desk job?”

“I wish. He’s a profiler when we drag him away kicking and screaming from his desk job. He’s one of our best; no one can match his talent. But…”

“But he does not enjoy the work.”

The agent exhaled loudly. “It takes a toll on him. The way he works, the way he looks at a crime scene, it’s very involved. Sometimes things really get to him.”

“Understandably so. All those bodies pile up in the graveyards of our mind.”

Crawford smiled very knowingly. “We’d like to have him help us track down some missing girls, but we’d like to make sure he’s ready first.”

“You do not trust him to tell you that himself.” Hannibal was beginning to piece together a very loose idea of the man Crawford was concerned about.

“Not at all. He’ll say no at first, but then the next day he’ll come to my office and say he’s changed his mind. I believed him the first few times—he’s a very straightforward man, you’ll see—but last time he helped us out, he got shipped away in an ambulance, sobbing. He got so deep inside the victim’s mind, he thought he was being killed. Said that if the killer wasn’t going to do it and get it over with, he’d do it himself. Spent the night at the hospital on suicide watch.”

Hannibal’s interest is piqued now. “He adopts the mindset of the victims?”

“Sometimes. Mostly he thinks like the killers, piecing together how they kill, the reasons behind what they do. He has a…active imagination. Or that’s how he describes it, at least. You can, uh, read about it in the files about some of crimes and how he helped. I brought them, I hope that’s not too forward—Dr. Bloom seemed fairly certain you would be interested.” Crawford did not mention Dr. Bloom’s other comments, her gushing praise. Initially, the agent had written her words off as the blind adoration students feel towards the mentors. Now, as he stood in Hannibal’s office, he understood how even someone liked level-headed, no-nonsense Alana could fall for this man’s peculiar charm. 

Hannibal knew that he could be offended that Crawford simply assumed he’d bend his knee for him, refuse the files and refer him to a third psychiatrist; he was, admittedly, tempted to do so because his vanity demanded that he maintain control of every situation he was in, pulling strings so that people bend for _him_. But the man Crawford described sounded like the tortured soul of a Shakespearean tragedy, and Hannibal could not resist the chance to meet him in person—here was a different kind of vanity that he possessed, a deep-set desire to collect peculiar patients like antiques. The especially disturbed one were like strange pets; Hannibal sought out odd men and women like some people sought out purebred dogs. “I’d be happy to do the profile. Will we be pursuing treatment afterwards?”

Crawford paused, half in relief, half because of the question Hannibal has posed, and the pregnant hesitation hung in the air, fleeting as a hummingbird, thrumming with a life of its own. When he spoke again, his words were slow and deliberate. “He has tried therapy in the past. He…” Crawford cast his line out and fished for a word, pausing again. “… _violently_ resisted it.” 

“Doesn’t like the thought of more strangers occupying his mind.” 

“He doesn’t like relinquishing control.” Hannibal watched Crawford pace through the room. There was a personal connection here, he thought. Crawford had reasons to protect Will Graham; he wanted to protect him. He wondered what sort of man this Will was to warrant both the defenses of Alana Bloom and an FBI executive. He wondered how many times Will’s mind had cracked from the weight of what he carried in his dreams.

There were many opportunities here. With great delight, Hannibal counted them, playing out little snippets of scenes in his mind. First, would be able to weasel his way into the circle of the FBI and better learn how to conceal his nighttime activities so that he can continue them here and not in the forests of the estate back in Lithuania. He could send Crawford’s hounds into a frenzy trying to steer them away from the Ripper, potentially. Secondly, and far more importantly, he would get the chance to poke around the mind of someone teetering on the border of madness and greatness. Will Graham was guaranteed to be a more interesting case study than any of his current patients, who were mostly disillusioned social elites. Another feather for his cap of deranged men, so to speak. It would be easy to convince Crawford and the FBI that Graham needed therapy, that there was no other option. Hannibal was a very persuasive man when he wanted to be.

He painted a picture of Will in his mind. A handsome man, maybe, with the brimming eyes, deep and liquid, of a tortured soul, that signature pout to his lips, curving gently downwards. A man who could be savage, his mouth twisted into a snarl. A man who could be sensitive. A man who could be, could be—could be anything, Hannibal realized, anyone. A man whose life was a revolving door that spit him out into a new room with each spin. A man who walked in circles, always returning back to his starting point, if only fleetingly…the doctor thought of his sleepwalker, of those endless loops. Perhaps Mr. Graham might like to talk to the dreamer about their mutual and constant states of change and movement. 

Perhaps Hannibal would like to talk to Mr. Graham. Perhaps he would like to watch an innocent be consumed by the throes of a murderer’s passion. Surely Will knew the thrill of death.

Perhaps Hannibal and Mr. Graham could find some common ground.

“I can change his views regarding therapy,” Hannibal said suddenly, staring at his chaise lounge and imagining conversations about killers.

Crawford laughed, full of disbelief, and Hannibal inclined his head a fraction. The laughter carried, echoed, and died in the rafters. They stared at each other, eyes crinkled in mirth, and they both thought of Will Graham.

xxx

The room was stuffy, stifling, and silent. Jack and Hannibal were sitting in an office at the FBI academy, the fluorescent lights beating down on them and pinning them beneath its harsh glare like insects on a corkboard. Crawford tapped his pen against his desk, breaking the heavy quiet between them; it was a worried little tick that made Hannibal’s body tense with irritation. “Shouldn’t be much longer, Doctor,” Jack said, taking a sip of his coffee and tap-tap-tapping. He was huddled down in his chair, spine hunched, hands and eyes unable to remain still. Jack was waiting for a storm.

Hannibal, on the other hand, was waiting for a man. He suffocated in his jacket and stared at the film that has formed on his coffee, nudging the ceramic cup occasionally so that the oily shapes wiggled and moved. With every tick of the clock, he grew more impatient; punctuality was important to the doctor, a family value that had practically been beaten into him as a child. There was no such thing as fashionably late in the Lecter household; there was no such thing as late at all. If one was not on time for dinner, they would not eat. He remembered one night in particular where he had slipped scraps of bread beneath Mischa’s door, trying to ease her hungry sniveling after their mother had sent her to bed with an empty stomach. He supposed that Will Graham had to be forgiven; he was, after all, at the mercy of his students. Hannibal counted out another minute and watched as the blobs in his coffee converged into something resembling the state of Louisiana, then Florida.  
On the sixty-first tick, as if on cue, the door swung open. The man who walked in appeared surly, his head tucked downwards, the strap of his satchel gripped tightly in one hand. He cast Hannibal a cold look from the corner of his eye, barely noticeable. “Will,” Crawford said with unusual warmth, handing the man a coffee that was poured long ago. 

When Hannibal smelled the air, sucking in a greedy drag when the man walked past him, he smelled sweat and the bitter tang of fear. It was a thick stench that hung around the stranger, cloying, and Hannibal felt as though he was on the hunt, the odor was so strong. 

He looked at Will’s face now and was struck with a sense of great familiarity. The beast offered him its memories of blood and bone, and then Hannibal knew that this is the man he met the other night, the man he had been meaning to visit again: this was his sleepwalker, brought to him by some stroke of god. Hannibal thought that he would recognize him anywhere; the image of those endless loops had been branded into his mind, stuck on repeat, and he had thought often of the way a bead of sweat had clung to Will’s nose as he walked, a desperate sailor on a stormy sea of perspiration and drowsy panic, clinging to its mast of flesh. With great delight, Hannibal looked at the stripes of black beneath Will’s eyes and wondered where else this man had been wandering since they met. He longed to ask him if his feet were sore from frostbite. 

Will Graham took the coffee with a mumbled thanks, dropping his bag behind the chair and sitting down next to Hannibal. Just far away enough, the doctor noticed, to be make it uncomfortable, to make it noticeable. He eyed the gap between their chairs with an almost amused expression. A swath of tile yawned between their loafers.

“This is Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” said Jack, gesturing to the doctor. “I asked him to help us with a profile.” 

Will glanced up for a brief moment to eye the doctor. He looked entirely unimpressed. Hannibal waited for an introduction and was left wondering if Will’s silence was due to arrogance or bristly shyness. Smiling graciously, Hannibal took the silence as an opportunity to observe the man more closely. Will Graham was handsome, as he had predicted, though his appearance did not invite. He teetered on the border of tidy and disheveled, his curls falling in planned swoops on his head, his clothes simple and a bit worn, though not ratty. His palms were sweaty, leaving a glossy print on the mug. His posture was somehow stiffer than Crawford’s and he resolutely avoided staring at one thing for too long; he had not looked at Hannibal’s face since he sat down. His face had a hardness to it that Hannibal knew was applied like a mask every morning; he remembered how soft and sweat-sheened it had looked in sleep.

They bantered about the case for a few minutes. Hannibal stood to decipher the tapestry of pins and pictures hanging on the wall before sitting again, nudging his chair slightly closer to Will’s. The younger man’s knee shifted away a centimeter as the chair scraped against the floor. Suspicion made his gaze steely.

In the short span of time they had been acquainted—he decided that he couldn’t count what he saw the other night as a true introduction—Hannibal deduced one important thing: Will Graham had specific boundaries. He remembered Jack Crawford’s comment about control and thought back to the other night, to the tracks in the snow. His nighttime sojourn made sense now. It was likely that Will gripped so tightly on the reins during the day because his charge broke free at night; his iron hold yanked his horse’s head up, made its eyes roll with white, but he would rather have a few waking hours of prickly, defensive control that drove others away than a life of gripping the saddle for balance. He was a cruel rider, heavy on the bit, but Will Graham was better at sitting a buck than enduring a fevered sprint. He was along for the bumpy ride of life for the sake of enduring it rather than enjoying it.

Hannibal noticed that the prickly man only looked at him when he thought he wasn’t looking. When Hannibal talked, Will made a point to look somewhere else. There was something very childish about his behavior—the way he sulked, his downcast gaze, his tone—that, in another man, Hannibal would consider rude. It _was_ rude. But Will Graham radiated fear; Hannibal imagined that if he were to touch Will’s neck, he’d feel a rabbit’s pulse there. 

When a lull occurred in their discussion, Hannibal turned to Will and asked, “Not fond of eye contact, are you?” He lifted his cup and stared at the man, unblinking. 

Will almost seemed offended that the doctor had addressed him. “Eyes are distracting.” His voice wavered as if it contained a sob. Like a knife his eyes met Lecter’s, and there was a threat in those clear blue irises, something that told Hannibal, loud and clear, to _shove off_. “You see too much, you don’t see enough.” Will’s tone was snarky, but he stuttered, fumbling with the words. “I try to avoid eyes whenever possible.” He turned away to forcibly end their conversation. Hannibal wondered if these little burst of aggression were usually effective for Will; they surely were, or else he would’ve found a new strategy to deflect people’s attention. 

He imagined that others viewed Will as someone to be avoided. Hannibal, however, was intimidated by him in the same way a bitch is intimidated by her puppies as they gnaw on her tail. He weighed silence against insight and chose the latter, though he knew it would rile the profiler who was so used to having the last word. He knew that it was Jack who will take the fallout from his prodding, but he could not resist. 

“I imagine what you see and learn touches everything else in your mind.” Will’s eyes danced up from the paper he was looking at; there was panic in those cerulean irises. It occurred to Hannibal then that the profiler might not know why the doctor was there. Will didn’t know that the doctor had read all of the files about him, and that Hannibal knew of his strange little penchant for empathy. Regardless of the man’s surprise, he continued, “Your values and decency are present, yet shocked at your associations. Appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for things you love.” 

Each word was dropped with the certainty of a guillotine. The stench of fear grew stronger now; Will grew very still. Then, his face contorted in an ugly way, twisting into petulance, and his panic was replaced with corrosive rage.

Hannibal couldn’t have been more pleased with himself.

“Whose profile are you working on? Whose profile is he working on?” Will’s anger shifted to Jack, shocked as he was by this betrayal.

“I’m sorry, Will. Observing is what we do—I can’t shut mine off any more than you can shut yours off.”

Hannibal’s blasé reply just infuriated the profiler more; Hannibal took a sip of coffee to hide the smile that made the corner of his lips twist upwards. Will was fumbling now, and Hannibal imagined the warm clench of his throat, the prickling behind his eyes, things he surely must be feeling in the throes of his indignant and righteous embarrassment. The man’s next reply was too quick; Hannibal knew that he was grasping at the first coherent thought that entered his mind. Hannibal could practically taste Will’s hatred for him. 

“Please, don’t psychoanalyze me,” Will choked out, stubbornly refusing eye contact with his aggressor, or perhaps unable to make it. “You won’t like me when I’m psychoanalyzed.”

Hannibal had to hide his smile at the man’s threat behind a sip of coffee. 

“Will.” Finally Jack intervened. It was pointless now; Will’s anger was beating at the levees of his patience. His defenses and civility would not last much longer. He seemed to realize this, for he offered Jack a look of pure hatred before standing, declaring something about giving a lecture about psychoanalyzing, and breezing past the doctor with a flourish. It was an impressive show, mused Hannibal. He wondered how it was possible for Will’s slight frame to hold so much stormy anger. 

Jack’s gaze rolled over to Hannibal as the door closed with a slam. The doctor understood now why the agent had fastened the storm shutters shut before this meeting, though he found that he could not feel bad for starting the dance to bring the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the only chapter that's going to follow canon closely. The rest is going to be loosely based around canon, with mentions of canon events, that sort of thing. Thanks for reading! I promise the next chapter will be more exciting!


	4. A Brief Discussion of Hannibal Lecter

IV.

“Just give him a chance, Will. I think you would actually enjoy talking to him.”

Alana and Will were sitting in the cafeteria of the FBI academy a few hours after his meeting with Hannibal. The profiler was busy dissecting a muffin and feeling appropriately victimized by the event, resting his chin on his hand and staring mournfully at the crumbs being scattered across his tray. Very plaintively, he replied, “I didn’t enjoy talking to him in there.”

“He caught you off guard. No, scratch that— _Jack_ caught you off guard.”

“Either way.” Will sighed and licked a piece of chocolate chip from the tip of his thumb. “I’m sick of him bringing in people to poke around my head.”

“Hannibal isn’t like the other people he’s brought in. He’s not a conventional therapist.” 

“Goody,” Will grumbled. He wasn’t sure how that was supposed to reassure him; instead of comfort, it brought images of shock therapy to mind. 

Alana exhaled loudly, giving the man a stern glare. Though she often found it hard to be patient with him, she couldn’t remember the last time she had gotten truly upset at him. “Why don’t you want to talk to him?”

Will had been waiting for this question, running through answers in his head ever since they sat down, rehearsing his biting reply. Wiping his hands on a napkin, he leaned forward, letting a grin that was somehow both eerie and condescending split his face wide. “Because,” he began, clasping his hands together, “There is nothing he can tell me that I haven’t already heard. Do you know what people who were at the Strangler crime scene said afterwards?” The Orlando Strangler had been the last case he had consulted on; he, Jack, and a team of ten had flown down south to find a man who was kidnapping women as they walked home from clubs. He had been shipped out of one of the locales they were investigating in an ambulance. The rest of his memories of the night were hazy, but they were filled with the bleak white of a hospital room and a desperate, nagging desire to die. Ignoring Alana’s “ _here-we-go-again_ ” look, he continued, “When people here asked them about it, they said, ‘He just sort of went crazy.’” His smirk collapsed into a stormy frown. “I don’t think I need another person, psychiatrist or coworker, telling me that I’m ‘disturbed’, Alana. Isn’t that the general consensus anyways? ‘Graham’s a good teacher, but he’s a little off his rocker.’” 

“No one thinks you’re crazy.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” Will snarled the words loud enough to garner a few stares from the neighboring tables. Alana cast her gaze down to her untouched yogurt. She looked embarrassed for him, her eyes trailing longingly towards a glowing exit sign.

Will stared down at the chocolate-chip carnage on his tray. He immediately felt bad for snapping at her; in truth, Alana was one of the few people he could tolerate at the academy. Though she had never admitted to it, he had the sense that she looked out for him, diverting the attention of those who wanted to sniff around his head. He wasn’t sure why suddenly she was all gung-ho for this Dr. Lecter to help, but now, as he pinched a piece of pastry between his fingers and sorted through his thoughts, he knew that there was likely a good reason for her insistence, though he didn’t want to admit it. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, the words barely audible above the din of the cafeteria. “You’re just trying to help.” Apologies were not easy for the man; they were typically either ungenuine or unsaid. 

“If you want the truth, Jack asked me to do the profile first.”

That didn’t surprise Will. “You declined?”

“I referred him to Hannibal.”

Bitterly he thought of how the conversation between Jack and Alana might have gone. She would have refused and cited a litany of reasons why: maintaining professionalism, upholding friendship, preserving a healthy arm’s length away from the man. Alana had clear and distinct boundaries with Will. Over the course of their friendship, he had uncovered some of her unspoken rules regarding him. First, she avoided being alone with him. Alana could have personal conversations with him, one-on-one discussions, but she always had them in populated places where she could allow her gaze to wander away to the crowd when Will’s stare, somehow both sullen and heated, became too much. Second, she avoided knowing any more about him than she had to. They knew each other’s educations; they did not know each other’s hometowns. That was the nature of their relationship—it was both profoundly rich, built on respect, but also horribly impersonal. Will often thought of it as a tidepool, bursting with colorful fauna but lacking any real depth; he wondered, too, if it was as temporary as these vibrant puddles. Will tried not to let these thoughts bother him, though he found that they often did. 

“Well, thank you for that, I suppose.”

“Jack doesn’t want to mess with your head. He just wants to make sure that you’re okay to work on the case.”

“I’m okay.”

Alana peeled the foil off of her yogurt with a critical stare. “You don’t look like you’ve been sleeping well.”

“S’nothing new. What’s the deal with this Dr. Lecter?” Will had a compulsive habit of steering conversations away from the topic of himself. He imagined that this little quirk drove Alana crazy.

“He was my mentor at Johns Hopkins. He’s a psychiatrist in Baltimore now—most of his clients are social elites, but he also does some more specialized work.”

“He’s a shrink for rich people?”

“Will.”

“That’s what you just described, Alana. How boring would that be? ‘Oh, Mr. Flannery was giving my wife bedroom eyes again.’ ‘Why won’t my husband buy me a _real_ minx stole?’”

“ _Will._ ”

He didn’t apologize.

“Just have one conversation with him. Just one. It doesn’t even have to be about you, though he’s going to ask. He’s traveled all over the place. Talk about that. Ask him about some emergency room stories, he used to be a surgeon. Everyone loves a gross medical story. Just _talk_ to him.”

“I’m not interested. God, I feel like I’m being set up on a _date._ ”

Alana had a hard time not rolling her eyes at Will’s melodrama. “Suit yourself. But I have some bad news for you: Jack asked him to consult on the case.”

“What!” Jack had hired a _nanny_ for him. Will felt hot embarrassment rising in his throat again. He wondered if his cheeks were pink; the man knew he could get delightfully rosy when he lost his cool.

“Relax, Will. Jack wanted another set of eyes on the case and figured he could kill two birds with one stone. Honestly, you should be grateful that it’s Hannibal and not someone else. He—well, manners and etiquette are important to him. It’d be unprofessional to pry while you’re both working.” Alana’s face scrunched up a little as she tried to apply herself to her mentor’s view. “But I still think you should talk to him. You’re going to have to work with him quite a bit, and I think that you two could both afford to make a better second impression on each other. You might even find that you _like_ him.”

Will grumbled something intelligible and squished a piece of muffin beneath his thumb. Alana had forgotten that _he did not like_ people. Hannibal Lecter, regardless of his manners, regardless of her fawning and praise, would _not_ be an exception to that rule. He tried to build excuses, stacking them up high like a child’s blocks, but gave up after knowing that Alana would knock down every wooden fort he made. 

“Fine,” he grumbled at last, tearing the paper muffin wrapper in two and mashing the pieces into a tight ball, “One conversation.”

Alana grinned, victorious, and stuck her plastic spoon in her mouth without another word, letting the silence, equal parts triumph and exasperation, settle on them, melt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short little update to bridge the gap between chapters 3 and 5! It felt better on its own, short and sweet, rather than lumped in with what I have planned next. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, thank for you all the comments and kudos, and feel free to drop me a line at pigwingstoheaven on tumblr!


	5. Blood Limned with Light

V.

Will entered the room on silent feet; if it were not for the salty tang that trailed the man, Hannibal would not have known he was there. Though he pretended not to notice him, resolutely staring at his folder as he shuffled the case notes into a neat pile, the doctor knew that Will was lingering in the doorway, collecting little bits of stray courage to power his voice and wondering if there was a way he could avoid this inevitable exchange of apologies. Hannibal let him loiter only to see if the man would lose his nerve and turn back down the hall without even casting the doctor and the wall of sad, dead girls a backwards glance over his shoulder.

There was silence but for the younger man’s quickened breaths. Hannibal plucked a curl of brown hair from the manila case folder, noting the sour smell that filled his nose—trepidation. He glanced at his watch and wondered how long Will would wait, imagining that Will’s hesitation was audible, a muted, muffled humming, rising and falling with the empath’s pulse.

Moments ticked by, and then finally he heard a deep inhalation of breath and the click-click-clicking of Will’s shoes tapping against the tile. Hannibal turned and smiled warmly as the man rounded the table, following him with his gaze, his pinning stare somehow both predatory and inviting. When Will pressed his hands against the desk to stabilize himself, using the furniture as a moat separating him and the doctor, Hannibal noted that his fingers could not stay still; his wrists shivered minutely. Will lacked the doctor’s aplomb. 

Hannibal was tempted to start their conversation but knew that was not his right; he feared that if he were to speak first, Will would abandon his plan, sweep whatever words he had prepared for Hannibal under the rug and go along with whatever the other said. So, very patiently, he watched the younger man work his jaw in what Hannibal guessed was a cocktail of frustration, embarrassment, and anxiety. He wished he could assist Will somehow in this Sisyphean task of initiating a chat; words always flowed so freely from his own lips, but it seemed they stuck like tar in Will’s throat. Would the empath accept a crocodile’s assistance if he smiled gently enough? Or would his bared teeth scrape his hollow pride?

Pressing his fingers into the table harder, Will slowly began, “I’d like to apologize for my behavior earlier. It was—I was caught off guard.” 

Warmth spread across Hannibal’s features, his eyes crinkling and his lips lifting. A strange pride welled in his chest. “I was not aware that Jack had pulled the wool over your eyes. I don’t retract my comments, but I do apologize for catching you unawares. That is not fair for you.” 

Will’s brows drew together, and then he nodded in understanding. Hannibal watched the man stare at the tile and wondered if Will had been expecting an inevitable lecture or a swallowing of his pride. He thought of Jack Crawford and wondered if his relationship with the empath was stained with daily scolding. “I would like to talk to you, Will,” he continued, lowering his hands to his knee. “On a more personal level. I am not sure if Jack told you, but I will be accompanying you to Minnesota, simply as a second opinion. _Not_ as a spy.”

Will’s mouth twisted into what Hannibal thought was the ghost of a smile. “Alana Bloom informed me of that, yes.”

“If you are willing, I’d like to entertain you for a second conversation. No poking, no prodding—I am far more interested in your thoughts on the case and, if you feel comfortable, your professional background. A typical conversation between new co-workers.”

“I—yeah, of course.” Will looked taken aback. “When?”

“Jack is gone for the day. We’re all alone here.” He smiled again and tapped his thumb against his knee. Hannibal wondered how often Will was asked if he _wanted_ to do things; he assumed not very often, based on his startled response to Hannibal’s request. It was not necessarily in government work’s nature to ask consent, much less in a law enforcement position. He imagined that Will was used to being pushed around, battered in the mad dash to save lives. Regardless of the necessity of taking and accepting orders in the FBI, Hannibal knew that consent and choice were important, if absent, pillars in the life of a man whose mind was often forcefully occupied by foreign and violent entities. 

Nodding, Will sat without a word, pulling his glasses from the breast of his shirt and turning around to rifle through the bag he had set near his chair for his own copies of the case data. His posture was less sulky than it was before, Hannibal noted, pleased. From his own file he pulled the pictures of the missing girls out one by one, lining them up so that they stared with bleak smiles at Will. The profiler’s eyes darted over each image; there was a spark of cleverness in those blue irises as he regarded the victims, but it was milky like a cataract, dulled with immunity. Will’s gaze was dead, though Hannibal suspected that he wore that glazed look like one might wear colored contacts—the color, the emptiness, they were both artificial, a mask for what lie beneath. 

“How is he choosing them?” asked the doctor. 

“Appearance. Age. They all look the same—same hair color, eye color, height and weight. They all have that Mall of America sort of look, plain and pretty.”

“Is it a sexual crime, then? A strange fixation?”

“No.” Will picked up the last photo on the table and held it up for Lecter to see. “Elise Nichols, number eight. Found tucked into her bed Monday.”

“You were the one who found her.”

“Yes. It was the first body for this case. No bite marks, no suck bruises, no evidence of semen or spit. She was just lying there. Peaceful, almost.” The cadence of his voice changed at the end, the words trickling into a new voice, becoming airy and disembodied. Something warm flickered in Hannibal’s chest as Will momentarily slipped into the mindset of the Minnesota killer. 

“Why did he leave a body now?”

There was a very heavy pause. Hannibal could hear the trickle of a coffeemaker from another room. 

“Well,” Will began, stuttering some, his face working into a dozen disjoint expressions, “The killer cut her liver out and sewed it back in again. She—she had liver cancer.” The man paused, reaching up to rub his forehead and take a breath. “He put her back, because…the meat was bad. He couldn’t use it.” 

Hannibal thought he knew where this was going; he was familiar with the subject, of course. He waited for Will to collect himself, body humming with excitement. While the profiler’s mind shied from his suspicions, Hannibal embraced them, and he began to think of black bones and antlers.

It took a moment, but finally Will let out the breath he was holding and, very softly, said, “He’s eating them. Elise Nichols’ meat was bad, so he brought her back home. He—he felt bad about killing her, he felt guilty because he couldn’t use her, I don’t know.” Doubt—perhaps not doubt, but a lack of acceptance for the reality, mused the doctor—made Will’s voice harsh and bitter. “One of the lab techs found antler velvet in some puncture wounds, so we think she was mounted on deer antlers, like organic bleeding hooks.”

Their killer was a cannibal. A cannibal mounting his victims on _antlers_. The news made Hannibal giddy; he wondered if it was one of his relatives, finally making a sojourn out of Europe. Running through his list of cousins, he tried to remember if he had heard any news about them. One would think that Robert would have called if one of their blood was traveling stateside; it was rare that the legacy of wendigoes saw each other, and Hannibal felt that a visit, even if brief, was common courtesy when one was in the area. It didn’t matter now, though; Hannibal was traveling to Minnesota, and he would recognize one of his own by scent alone. The trip had already promised to be interesting, but now his clinical excitement had dissolved into something childish at the thought of hunting with one of his cousins. He would have to leave a message of sorts, an organic letter to show he was there; even as Will yammered on about the intricate details of the cadaver, Hannibal was thinking of how he might alert his cousin to his presence. 

The doctor snapped back into focus when he heard the pauses between Will’s words growing longer, tuning in just in time to hear the profiler say, “So, yeah. Thoughts?”

Hannibal went for a generic answer. “Cannibalism is typically an act of dominance; it’s a victory over one’s fellow man. It is an act of terrible efficiency. Tell me, Will, are we flying to Minnesota to find corpses? Do you expect to find this cannibal’s scraps?”

Will sighed, the sound full of river-deep sadness. “No, I don’t. I imagine that he would honor every part of his victims.” His gaze, stormy and dark, slid to Hannibal, and his lips twitched into a very wry grin. “Though if we find the cannibal, we find the bodies, I suppose.” 

Hannibal’s own face darkened at the words, a black hunger creeping into his eyes as he regarded the clever boy, though he smiled still. He hoped that Will would not interfere with he and his cousin’s meeting; Hannibal would be loathe to get rid of him so quickly, since he was just beginning to enjoy his company and learn the labyrinth of his mind. “I suppose our only option is to find him, then.”

They regarded each other coolly then, the florescent lights painting shadows on their cheekbones and highlights in their umbral eyes, and they thought of cannibals and killers, of dead girls and black deer. They thought of death together for the first time, though not the last, and they trudged bloody footprints across the fresh snows of their new and distant friendship, painting a white canvas red and then a red canvas black. 

A day later, their plane touched down in Minnesota and the lights of the runway streaked past them as they braked. Whereas most passengers gripped their seats as the plane drove forward, quietly terrified of the sensation of imbalance that made the plane seem as if it were about to crash tail over nose, Will sat there, still as a boulder, his eyes glassy, accepting. Hannibal had watched him from the next aisle over the entire flight. He did not flinch at turbulence; he stared out the window the entire time, dazed when the flight attendant asked him for his drink order. The doctor suspected that Will was half hoping for the plane to drop from the sky. He wished he could hear his thoughts.

They drove their rental cars to the hotel and the team parted ways. Hannibal was left alone outside as Will and Jack skulked into the lobby after mumbling their goodnights. The lights formed a halo around him in the darkness, a ring of brightness that surrounded, but did not touch, him. He watched a woman smoke two cigarettes in quick succession against the side of the hotel. She glared at strangers as they past, blowing smoke in the face of a man who turned his head to glance at her. Hannibal’s fingers twitched on the handle of his suitcase and he thought of the cannibal killer, of the signal flare he must shoot up for his brethren. The lights flickered, the woman dropped her spent cigarette to the ground, and the beast hummed, its dark joints cracking in a languid stretch. 

That night Will slept, and he did not hear the warbling scream that drifted up from the back of the hotel and he did not see the black skeleton dragging Cassie Boyle away into the ravine behind the building, deep into that unforgiving night. The lights in the parking lot blinked and Will’s head filled with dark tar. 

He dreamt of plane crashes.

xxx

“That body,” Will said, “Gave me everything I needed to know about the killer.” He was referring to the impaled corpse of Cassie Boyle, found yesterday morning in a sunny Minnesota field.

“Did it? Tell me.” 

They were driving to a construction office, as per Jack’s request. Hannibal wasn’t sure why he has been asked to come along; searching through boxes of papers does not require the insight of a psychiatrist. He suspected that Jack had asked him to accompany Will in order to keep a watchful eye on him. The agent had handled Will like fine china at the crime scene; perhaps he was expecting an outburst, a meltdown. He wished he had seen Will’s reaction to his display. Did he find the splay of Cassie Boyle’s limbs beautiful?

“This killer—“ _Me_ , Hannibal wanted to breathe. “—wanted to put on a show. It’s like he’s mocking us, or mocking the Shrike. He put Cassie Boyle on display like a hunter probably had that stag’s head on display.” _Beautiful_ , he yearned to whisper. “She was in our hotel—did Jack tell you that? This killer knew we were coming. He wanted to surprise us. Take a left here.”

Hannibal flicked the blinker and asked impartially, “Why are you so certain it is not the original killer? The Shrike?”

“Totally different motives. The copycat wanted to humiliate someone. The Shrike…he wants to honor those girls. And he would—he would honor every part of them. The copycat took her lungs. He made sure she knew that everything else was useless to him. The Shrike didn’t want to embarrass Elise Nichols; that’s why he tucked her back into bed. But the copycat…it’s different. It’s like looking at paint chips. They’re similar, but the one at the top is a different shade of blue than the one at the bottom.”

It was fascinating seeing how Will’s mind worked; Hannibal supposed that the other man’s descriptions were not so wrong. He thought of his family, scattered across Europe, and tried to remember if any of them had grown close enough to humans that they felt pity when killing them. Which would of his cousins would tuck a rotten cut of meat back into bed? It had to be one of the mothers—only a doe would coo over a dead child so. But why, but why? Why kill a string of near-identical girls? A pattern would certainly attract the attention of the FBI, the news, and rumors of cannibalism would attract the attention of one of her own…

“Why is the Shrike doing it?” Hannibal offered the question up to Will. His insight wouldn’t be accurate, it couldn't possibly be, for Will did not know of flesh and bone monsters, but that didn’t mean it still wouldn’t hold pearls of truth. 

Will, who had been looking out the window the entire ride, shifted in his seat so that he could cast Hannibal quick glances from the corner of his eye. “He’s trying to preserve someone. _Save_ them. He—he has a daughter who looks like the other girls. She’s leaving home—going to college, maybe—and he can’t stand the thought of losing her.”

Was she mourning then? He supposed that would make sense; the deaths of their young were rare and often at the hands of humans. It was traditional for the adults to hunt when their children passed, spilling blood that their young would never taste, rending apart one body for ever year their child had lived. 

Incredible boy. Warmth flared bright in his chest at the wisdom the profiler had offered. Will’s insight was not so wrong, though perhaps the application was wrong. The right equation for the wrong problem…but how could he know? How could he know of the monsters that lived in his world? A sad pride filled Hannibal’s chest; he did not want him to be wrong. Of course, it did not cross Hannibal’s mind that _he_ could be wrong—the doctor was not one to doubt himself. The man focused on the growing warmth he felt for the moody profiler, the strange connection growing there. Yes, perhaps Will Graham might grow to understand monsters. Perhaps, thought Hannibal, he finally had found an equal in mind and insight.

He could smell the construction office—the must of crushed gravel and plywood—before he could see it. Soon the car was pulling into the unpaved lot, crunching stones beneath its tires. Hannibal wasn’t sure why they were there—something about a curl of metal, an alloy that this company used—but he placidly followed Will into the tiny shack of an office, surprising a receptionist who eyed their credentials with narrowed, wary eyes. While they sifted through files, she whispered into the phone, her eyes darting to glare at them occasionally. Hannibal acted as if he was reading the documents. His mind was filled with thoughts of his nieces and nephews, many of whom he only knew through pictures. 

Will froze suddenly, staring down at the file he had just picked up as if it had bitten him. Slowly, he asked, “Did Mr. Hobbs have a daughter?”

The receptionist blinked, murmured something into the mouthpiece, and then set the phone down. “Garrett Jacob Hobbs? Might have.”

“Eighteen or nineteen? Plain but pretty? Auburn hair?” A strange panic had begun to tinge Will’s voice. Hannibal watched him carefully, setting the paper he was holding down on the desk. 

“Maybe. I don’t know! I don’t keep company with these people.”

“Will,” Hannibal interjected, “What is it about this man?” 

“He didn’t leave an address.”

“Therefore he has something to hide?” 

Doubt flickered across Will’s face. He was agitated and trying desperately not to let it show; Hannibal smelled salt again. “I—I don’t know. I want these files—we’re going to pack up these files.” The receptionist rolled her eyes, a sigh making her chest heave, but she nodded, apparently knowing better than to bicker with government employees. 

Hannibal, naturally, was not impressed by this line of reasoning, and wondered where exactly Will’s mind was; as they tucked the papers back into their files and brought them to the car, he thought of a way to test it. He did not believe Will Graham’s deductions, but he was also a man with a predatory curiosity, an innate need to experiment; he supposed that even if he did not suspect the work of one of his own, he would have tested Will’s idea, inquisitive as he was as to how the wheels of the man’s mind turned. 

Garrett Jacob Hobbs had left a phone number. That was more than enough for Hannibal to prove to himself that Will was wrong. He picked up a box and carried it outside, pleased to see that the secretary was waiting beneath the porch, stretching her arms up as he neared. As he handed the papers down to her, he tipped the lip of the box forward, and a cascade of documents fluttered into the mud. “I’ve got it!” Will called, trotting over. He bent down to help the woman gather the papers and Hannibal, pleased, walked back into the office. 

He picked up the phone with a tissue and punched the number in. Three rings later, a woman picked up, and he asked for Hobbs. Silence. Murmuring. Something was put down on a table or counter and then a man’s voice carried over the wires. “Hello?”

“Garrett Jacob Hobbs?” 

A beat of silence. “Yes.”

“This is a courtesy call—listen to me very carefully. Are you listening?”

A beat of silence. Then, breathed softly, “Yes.”

“They know.”

A beat of silence. Another. Another. Hannibal waited for questions, waited for confusion, waited for angry yelling about prank calls, for fury. But the silence thrummed on, and he could hear Hobbs’ breathing pick up. There were no protests—only the silence. Hobbs made a small choking sound and then a click and the dial tone filled Hannibal’s ear. 

It seemed, Hannibal thought, that he had miscalculated. He had made an assumption where there had been little evidence, intuited on a whim, and he was certainly aware of the old saying about assuming. 

Putting the phone down, Hannibal began to sort through his confusion but was interrupted by Will. The man was breathing hard from running up the stairs. “Hannibal, I found Hobbs’ address. We need to go there now. I think—I think he’s the one.”

How could the man make such a blind jump? Hannibal was positive now that he was correct, but it made little sense; it made _no_ sense. It was a testament to Will’s skills and experience, he supposed, but how, but _how_? The psychiatrist didn’t argue with Will despite his questions, for he couldn’t find his tongue. They drove, picking through their brains, one in fear, the other in excited confusion, and by the time they rolled into the driveway of the Hobbs’ residence, the car smelled like sweat. Will’s forehead was dotted with perspiration; he wiped at it with his palm and then pulled a tube of aspirin from his pocket. The profiler swallowed the pills and left the car without a word, leaving Hannibal Lecter to unbuckle slowly, a smile creeping across his face. He smelled blood. Blood, fear, the spice of panic. 

He was wrong, and a part of him wanted to feel wounded about it, but a sick excitement was building in his gut. The blood, the panic, Will Graham about to enter that house, mingle with death…

He watched a woman through the door. Watched Will regard the body with rising terror. He bent to help her, but stopped before his legs could fold. Hannibal imagined that Will had watched the life leak from her body, and he imagined that it was the screams coming from inside that gave Will a burst of moxie as he burst into the house, yanking his gun from its holster. The doctor opened the car door and trailed behind the profiler slowly, savoring every step, breathing heavy to suck up every greedy whiff of gore he could get. He knew now that he was wrong, that it was not a relative, not a beast of black bone. He was wrong, and he knew it would wound him later, but now it filled him with life, and the smells and sounds of this disaster excited him. Hannibal’s pupils were blown wide with delight and the arousal of bloodlust. He stepped over the woman’s body and felt one of her fingers crunch beneath the heel of his shoe.

More screams. Still he took his time. Will’s voice rose above the din, trying at confidence, failing. A shot. Nine more. Three thuds. Something was cooking, burning—human meat. Hannibal rounded the corner and found Will on his knees, his hands wrapped in a prayer around a girl’s neck. Blood was pulsing out from his fingers, spreading onto the floor. Against a cupboard, a man—Hobbs—was dying. He was hoarsely whispering, and his words caused little trembles to wrack Will’s frame.

Hannibal allowed himself a moment to absorb the scene into his memory before crossing the kitchen, kneeling down beside Will and replacing his hands with his own, far surer than the profiler’s quivering digits. Will gaped like a fish struggling for air, his breath coming in harsh bursts, and he stared at Hannibal as if the mere sight of him was a tether to this world. 

Hannibal thought of how he unleashed carnage. He found that he did not care. He was far more preoccupied with the sight of Will, his bloody hands limned with the light streaming through the kitchen window. The gore shone in the morning sun, dripping from Will’s hands, and Hannibal thought about how he wanted to take those fingers into his mouth, lick them clean is if they were coated in the sweetest ambrosia, or the honey in the lion.

Perhaps this was not the first time Will had killed; perhaps the scent of gunpowder was quotidian to him. But he was beautiful now to Hannibal, part beast in his mind, a disciple of death that Hannibal’s heart reached for, stretched for. Surely, surely this man would understand. Will Graham would not tremble when he met beasts, for beasthood had already been shoved upon him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you will never have to wait nearly a month for an update again! I have been so busy with an experiment for class, I've hardly had any free time to write. Since the semester is ending and I will be swamped, here's a survey: Would you rather have more frequent, shorter (~2000 words) updates, or longer ones, like this? I considered breaking this one off before the xxx's, if you'd like a reference for my shorter updates. 
> 
> This is probably the last chapter that will follow canon closely; the rest of the story will follow its own timeline. I plan on writing three "books" for this universe/story, the second of which is tentatively called The Lovely Woods. As always, thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, and thank you for kudoing!


	6. Hunger Pains

VI.

Days passed, and phones rang, and now Will Graham was occupying the upper level of Hannibal Lecter’s library.

As he peered up at the man, the doctor was reminded of firefighters and cats. He wondered if he would be able to lure the empath down himself, or if some assistance would be require to get him to interact beyond nods and grunts. Will was radiating nervousness, pacing along the balcony with the suave panic of a tiger in a cage; his fingers danced along the spines of the books, his body unable to stay in one place for too long. He smelled, as always, like sweat.

Hannibal elected to be patient with him. There was a fondness growing in his belly for this man, born from the sight of seeing him covered in blood and dotted with gunpower. Will understood killers; now, he had even killed himself. Surely, thought the doctor, that meant that he would understand monsters; perhaps, should he stretch his mind to legend and lore, he could even understand Hannibal. The thought filled the doctor with black excitement and had fueled his daydreams with his patients from earlier in the day. 

He would never admit it to himself, but moving away from his family had gouged a deep pit of loneliness in his chest. Hannibal could socialize amongst Baltimore’s elites, he could charm his academic colleagues, he could rattle and dissect his patients, but, without others of his own kind to interact with, he could never fulfil his desire for companionship. The wendigoes were social beasts, wolf-like in their hierarchy and loyalty. Hannibal often felt like a dog among the sheep, a creature that existed to bite at their heels, not to befriend them. 

But Will, even if hid from the doctor now, could perhaps don a sheepdog’s fur, if only temporarily; Will could perhaps stretch his mind to _understand_ the doctor, and that was what the man truly craved. Will could not become a beast himself, but he could _apply_ himself to beasts. Death, blood, blackness—these were all as familiar to Graham as air and water. Hannibal longed for his understanding as a sailor craves sight of land after being adrift for so long. 

The man looked down at him now, having studied every book on his shelf, and gestured to the sheet of paper in the doctor’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Your psychological evaluation. You’re totally functional and more or less sane—well done.” 

The profiler approached the railing of the balcony, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “We barely spoke. Did you just rubber stamp me?”

“We don’t need to speak for me to know that you are sound of mind, Will. You are working through a traumatic event. It takes time. I would have suggested that Jack Crawford give you a small leave of absence, but I fear what might happen if you are left alone with your thoughts. I think that it’s better that you continue teaching as you have been, and I wrote so on your form.” 

Will’s gaze dropped and a shadow crossed his face. Softly, he said, “My students applauded me when I came back.”

“Of course. Surely you’re a hero to them now. How did that make you feel?” Surely Will Graham could not have been pleased with their reaction; with an inward smile, Hannibal imagined the hell he might’ve given his students during the lecture, the questions thrown at them sharp and swift, their answers always wrong. Or had he shrunk into himself, stunned?

“I don’t want to be idolized. Not for that. I felt…guilty.” Will’s hands came to rest on the railing. “I’m up for a commendation—they want to reward me for killing a man.”

Hannibal frowned. “You killed a man who killed people’s daughters. Is that not admirable?” 

Will’s voice rose, agitation seeping in. “What about his daughter? What about her life? She’s orphaned, she’ll be targeted, and she’ll always have a scar across her neck to remind her of what happened.” He moved to the ladder now, crawling down so swiftly, Hannibal feared he would fall. “What about her? Do you think she should admire me for killing her dad?”

“Do you find it strange that we glorify some killers while condemning others? You are a hero, while Hobbs is a villain. In war, we worship our own soldiers, and paint crude propaganda of the other side’s. There are good killers and bad killers, apparently.” Hannibal watched Will take a frantic loop around the office. The man might be harder to reach than anticipated; he pursed his lips, trying to fend off disappointment.

“I don’t feel like a hero.” 

“Of course you don’t. You know what killing feels like. Your students might someday—they will pull the trigger, and they will think of you when they too are applauded.”

There was a long and pregnant pause. Hannibal continued, “What did killing Hobbs feel like, Will?” It was a greedy question, and Hannibal waited for the answer with a salivating eagerness. 

The profiler swallowed, turning to look at the doctor. He held his words on his tongue as if they were made of glass before finally letting them tumble, shatter. “It felt…powerful.” 

Hannibal thought back to the sight of Will’s crimson hands. His head felt light with the giddiness at Will’s admission. He wanted to tell him to _remember that feeling_ , to capture it and pin it to his heart like an insect on a corkboard. Instead, he said, “I used to be an emergency room surgeon. There were times, as we rushed to save a life, when I would step back, look at what I was doing, and realize that I was holding that person’s being in my hands. There is undeniable power in that. It’s a sick feeling, is it not? It’s sullying.” The last words felt strange on his tongue; lies always did.

“I still feel like I have Abigail Hobbs’ blood on my hands. I can’t wash that feeling off. One of my dogs knocked its food bowl over, and I thought it was a gun shot and panicked.” 

Hannibal nodded solemnly, leaning against his desk. Of course the experienced had rattled Will; most humans were not equipped with the capacity to kill, and the experience shattered them. That did not mean that Will would always be ruined by it though. That did not mean that he could not look at Hannibal and see the beauty in how he sculpted the corpses into art… “You must be patient with yourself. Trauma is a meal best digested slowly. You will panic again, and you may be afraid to go to crime scenes. I advised Jack to be careful. I know you do not need a nanny, Will, but you do need a pair of unaffected eyes watching over you. If you would like assistance, then my office is always open. If not, I hope that you will at least confide to someone at Quantico and avoid the field if you feel like your footing is unsteady.”

A flurry of expressions crossed Will’s face as he fumbled with this offering of intimacy and comradery; Hannibal was not surprised or offended when the man immediately changed the subject. “They cleaned out Hobbs’ house and his hunting cabin. They found some strange stuff.” Finally, the man sat down, leaning back into the sleek leather of the chair. Hannibal considered this a small victory, perhaps an acceptance of his offer to help, and seated himself across from Will. “Black antlers, pieces of hooves, strange teeth. Carvings that the anthropology lab is looking at now. Human meat too, but we already knew about that.”

Hannibal digested that news, tilting his head minutely. Black antlers…”I don’t know of any deer with naturally black antlers. Were they painted?”

“No. Someone sawed one in half to see if they were fakes meant to hold something, but they were solid black all the way through.”

He was not one to feel nervous, but the doctor had to admit that the news of this discovery left a strange feeling in his belly. Will continued, “The carvings had deer-like figures on them too.”

“Cult behavior?” 

“It would seem so.” Will did not seem too perturbed by this; surely the man has seen more disturbing scenes in his work, thought Hannibal.

He had heard of men who hunted their kind, bands of individuals who sprung from an order of terrified peasants. Hobbs, however, could not have possibly hailed from one of these families—one of the Order would never dare to consume human meat. It was possible, then, that Hobbs had been trying to become one of their kind, or at the very least mimic them. The thought made him shift in his chair. Perhaps Hobbs was one of their New World brethren. No—they were too tight-knit. They would have never have let him leave their lands; they would have killed him before they allowed that. 

Regardless, perhaps a letter to Canada was needed. This Hobbs man seemed like strange business. 

“It reminded me of the story of the Wendigo. My grandpa used to tell it to us when we went camping every summer.”

“It’s an Algonquian legend. When will the anthropology lab have their results in?”

“Soon. It usually takes them a week or two.”

“I suppose you’ll know then. It wouldn’t be so farfetched to say that this man was affected by a particular type of psychosis and trying to become a monster. People swap their skins all the time.” _All the time, dear Will._

The profiler’s face scrunched as he thought, his head bobbing up and down in a small nod. A comfortable silence fell over the pair as they thought of men becoming monsters and legends yawning to life before Will said, “Do you always have this time free?” 

“Yes.” Hannibal smiled, a pleased little thing.

Will nodded again, falling back into the chair. His lips parted slightly as if he were about to say something, but it seemed that, once again, his words were trapped in his mouth. “Will I see you again next week?” Hannibal ventured. 

The empath’s gaze drifted away. He nodded, though it was stiff with reluctance. A little flash of pity prompted Hannibal to say, “I look forward to hearing more about the case.” And then, after a moment’s thought, he added, “When you can’t escape the shadow of the life you took, think instead of the life—lives, likely—that you saved.”

Will did not reply to that, and the words seemed to make his shoulders droop as though Hannibal had placed a great weight on his back. He cast the doctor a quiet, sad look, and then stood, retrieving his jacket. Hannibal met him at the door and, with the hint of a smile, said, “Next week I will have to pour you a glass of wine.” He was pleased to receive a smile in return, melancholy as it was. 

As he watched the lights of the man’s car flare and disappear, Hannibal thought of the long walk to Wolf Trap, of sleepwalker’s circles, and of Will Graham, his nightmares, and the way the blood had painted his glasses, ghastly and beautiful. He imagined that Will would be haunted tonight, plagued by killing and killers. Hannibal looked at his watch and sighed. There was a kidney waiting in the fridge for him that would surely be bad by tomorrow, but he supposed that a trip to Wolf Trap would prove more satisfying than a kidney pot pie. 

He shut the door and waited a few minutes, lest Will had forgotten anything, before unbuttoning his jacket and draping it over the back of his chair. His vest and undershirt were folded into neat squares and placed on the seat, followed by his pants and boxers. Hannibal stood in his office, nude, and breathed in deeply before letting the beast out, the black flesh overtaking his pale expanse, his limbs shifting, lengthening. These transitions weren’t painful—they never had been—and were relatively quick. Hannibal wore both skins with equal dignity, equal comfort. As he stretched to his full height—if one didn’t measure his antlers, he was a bit taller in this body—he felt a surge of power swell in his chest.

It took some maneuvering to get out the back door; the man had to twist his head this way and that in order to get his branching rack of antlers through the frame. He took a greedy whiff of the air as he stepped outside, allowing himself a moment to bathe in the scent of man that filled the Baltimore night, before beginning the trek to the highway.

This journey was precarious but practiced; it had taken trial after trial to find the best path out of the city. He skulked from building to building, shadow to shadow, melding with the umbrae. The last barrier to the safety of the trees was a junkyard patrolled by a trio of dogs. As he climbed the fence, the hounds gathered, their hackles and lips raising, their snarls making their broad chests vibrate. The chain link fence rattled behind Hannibal as he hopped down, letting loose a growl of his own, far deeper than that of the dogs’. The sound was meant to disorient and intimidate; like a whale song, it was layered and quavering, beautifully ominous. A wendigo’s snarl could hold many words based on the rise and fall of the pitch, understood only by his kind and the troupes of creatures in the woods. This one told the dogs that they were in the presence of a mightier beast than they, and that they would be wise to mind their manners. 

Their ears pricked and fell when the sound hit a sour note and begrudgingly they scattered, if only to save their own skin. This left Hannibal to continue his journey unperturbed. Picking through the shards of glass was always one of the more interesting parts of the evening. The doctor was amazed at what people threw away; plastic picture frames would crush beneath his hooves and he would glance down to see photos of families and couples. There would always be strange things, he had decided once, that people decided were no longer worth keeping. 

He wondered what Will Graham had thrown out in his lifetime. 

He climbed the other fence out and welcomed the wood’s embrace, melting into the heavier patches of trees. The rest of the journey was easy so long as he stuck to the trees. Hannibal broke into a lazy run, swallowing the ground beneath his stride, his back legs hammering a rhythmic beat against the turf. His kind had been granted superior physical abilities to an ordinary human; they could keep pace with a horse, lift things twice their weight, and run for hours. Hannibal admitted that he did not quite understand the nature of Jadvyga’s curse—if she had intended to mock the Lecter name, why had she made them so _powerful_?

He wasn’t complaining, though. Hannibal felt immortal, _invincible_ in this body, a god placed on the earth to terrorize man. His human form and his role as a psychiatrist brought him power over man’s mind; this form brought him power over man’s body and the spark of his life. The animals scattered as he tore through the woods, the whites of their eyes flashing as he passed. Later, when he was closer to Will’s house, he would hunt. Perhaps he would leave a gift for the profiler this time, since his misguided offering to a nonexistent relative had been interpreted as such. A shiver of excitement ran through his ribs at the thought. Will could understand him, maybe. Perhaps Will could _see_ him. He found himself getting excited at the thought, a strange lick of arousal and bloodlust filling his body, mixing like volatile chemicals until he began to run faster to burn off this joy and thirst. 

The night grew darker and the stars grew brighter, and soon he found himself at the edge of Will’s ravine, the lights from the house drawing him in like a moth. His patience was scant but he knew he had to wait until the windows went dark, until he could hear the even rhythm of Will’s sleepy breathing if he stood close enough to the little home. 

To pass the time, he slipped into the woods, following the sound of crunching leaves. Deer had a distinctly musky scent that made them easy to find, and these woods reeked of their presence. There were few other animals that brought the wendigoes much satisfaction to eat, at least on this coast. He knew that his family in Lithuania had found other quarries, bears and oxen, though they rarely feasted on meats that weren’t human, posh as they were. 

He could hear the movements of a small herd deeper in the woods. Hannibal followed the rustles, his belly low against the snow. There were three when he found them, a trio of does, one of which was becoming bow-legged in her advanced age. As she strained her neck up to pull the needles off a pine tree, Hannibal burst from the shadows, throwing himself onto her sagging back. The other deer immediately tumbled into the night with surprised grunts, leaving their elderly companion for the strange beast to maim, the red of its blood spraying across their fleeing backs as Hannibal tore the animal’s jugular. 

The deer died quickly and quietly, her life leaving her body in great, pulsing gouts. She did not have the strength to struggle, unable to even kick her feet, unable to even summon little groans of surprise and sorrow from her fluttering lips. He watched her die curiously and then took a moment to admire the soft and still curve of her spine. 

After Hannibal had left home and enrolled in college, he had been struck with a great disgust for feeding in this form; the raw flesh had suddenly seemed barbaric. That was when he had learned to cook, taking hours every night to learn the taste of spices, what went well together, what didn’t. A curious child, he had watched the servants in the kitchen quite frequently, though he had never guessed that he would be interested in learning to do a task that had seemed so menial at the time. 

Eventually Hannibal had learned to separate the two bodies. He had spent his childhood watching his uncles pose for pictures in their mythic forms, black stag-men in military décor, and even as a child, he had known that there was something fundamentally wrong about the scene. His relatives could not accept their beasthood, and tried to cloak it in human things. Hannibal had realized that both skins were a part of him—different, perhaps, but of equal footing—and so he strove to nurture both bodies, becoming an academic in one and a skilled hunter with the other. By honing each half, treating them separately, as one might treat siblings of different demeanors, Hannibal had realized that he could rise above man, godly, a melding of spirits and strengths. 

Now, he felt nothing but hunger as he tore open the animal’s belly and watched the steaming organs spill out. Good food and wine was for one body; meat was for another. Every organ was snapped up with gusto, and the rest of the corpse was left for the scavengers, whose eyes glowed a safe distance away from the scene. As he walked away, he heard them scurry out, their yips and growls painting the air around the gutted doe with noise. Hannibal thought that perhaps Will would walk in these woods later in the week and stop to admire, in gross awe, the mangled body of the deer. He allowed himself a pleased little rumble at the thought, beginning the trek back to the house. 

It was dark when it appeared through the trees, the only light source being the gleam of the porch lamp. Creeping closer, he walked around the back, listening for the sounds of the dogs and their master. He found that if he pressed his ear to the siding, he could hear the very faint inhalations of a sleeping Will Graham. Hannibal listened for a moment, finding the sound strangely hypnotic. Then, there was a sudden thump as if the man had fallen from bed, and slow, steady footsteps pattered inside. Hannibal looked up as a window was slid open on the second floor and was alarmed to see Will’s dark curls appear. Gracelessly the man wiggled out of the window and onto the roof, falling first onto his hands and knees, then straightening. Hannibal stood, poised to catch the man should he roll off the roof, his eyes wide with panic as he watched Will rise. Once upright, Will seemed content to simply stand there, gazing out upon his yard with lidded eyes, his lashes fluttering gently. Hannibal wondered what he was dreaming of. 

Hannibal knew that he couldn’t stay up there, though assisting him could mean revealing himself, lest he shifted back. He quickly debated which would be more scandalous—Will Graham seeing a black beast, or Will Graham seeing his psychiatrist naked—and decided upon the latter. After all, any strange creatures could be blamed on dreams, and the thought of the younger man knowing the truth of Hannibal’s identity was somewhat appealing, yet dangerous. Hannibal sprung up to climb onto the house, his long fingers grabbing the edge of the roof. Slowly he approached the sleepwalker and gently he wrapped his hand around Will’s wrist, pulling him toward the open window. The man followed without hesitation, without even tensing, and dark thoughts began to fill Hannibal’s head as he imagined Will splayed out, guts spilling, the easiest meal Hannibal had ever caught. He might not even wake before his life was gone. 

But he could not eat Will, even if he was placid as a cow to slaughter now. Will was his friend, Hannibal reminded himself, at the very least an acquaintance (he could not, after all, ignore the sad anger that lurked in Will’s gaze when he looked upon the psychiatrist). He thought of Will in the sunlight, blood shining on his fingers, and this woke other primal instincts, ones rarely felt, temporarily subduing the desire to feast. 

He skipped around the sleepwalker, his hooves tapping on the roof, and crawled through the window before him so that he could awkwardly pick Will up and pull him back into the house. The man made a soft noise of protest when Hannibal’s fingers wrapped around his torso but still somehow did not wake. Through the entire ordeal, his breathing had not even hitched. As he righted the man, Hannibal considered if Will would allow him to observe him under more controlled conditions to see how deeply the tides of somnambulism drowned his brain. 

Hannibal looked around the dark room in search of the bed. The room was full of clutter, dusty boxes strewed across the floor. As he picked through the mess, Hannibal saw spilled containers of books, damaged and broken fishing gear, untouched photo albums. He picked one of these tomes up—the year 1984 was printed on the front in gold writing—and tucked it beneath his arm.

After peeking in the other rooms in search of Will’s bedroom, Hannibal carefully led the profiler down the stairs, walking backwards in case the man were to fall. His hoofs slotted awkwardly into each step, slippery against the wood. It appeared that the first floor of the house was the most used; as he led Will to the bed, which was covered in terrycloth towels and reeked of sweat, Hannibal observed the comfortable simplicity of the profiler’s living space. Fishing supplies were pushed into a corner near a worktable that had a selection of colorful, unfinished flies. The area near the fireplace was littered with the furry lumps of Will’s pack, who were eying the beast in their home with great suspicion. One of them—a small mutt with a comical underbite—was standing, her lips lifted in a snarl and her tail raised like a flag. The wendigo ignored her, tiny little mongrel that she was, fearing that his own low growl of dominance would wake Will from his sleepy stupor. 

Hannibal led him to the mattress, then lifted him again and laid him back onto the sheets. He considered tying the man to the metal headboard to prevent further wandering, but feared what might happen if Will were to struggle in his sleep. He wracked his brain for another solution; perhaps Will had a baby gate for his dogs, or perhaps he could block the windows and doors somehow to prevent Will from venturing back out into the cold. But what would the man think when he woke up and saw these barriers? Hannibal imagined the anxiety that would spawn from finding things not as they were before he went to bed and knew that Will Graham did not need any more paranoia in his life. He looked down at the tome tucked in his arm, considered, and then moseyed over the couch, sitting pristinely on the ratty thing. Even in this body, Hannibal sat like a lord, one hooved leg crossed over the other, his spine rigid and straight. The dogs cast him filthy stares.

It would be a long night, he thought, setting the album on his thighs, but Will needed a protector. He was not safe in the company of his mind, which seemed hell-bent on either throwing him off of a roof or leading him into the biting winter cold to freeze. With a great and stoic warmth, the stag-man watched the profiler as he settled back into deep, still sleep. 

Hannibal traced the design on the photo album with a black finger and tried to sort through his intentions. When he had chased Graham’s car to Wolf Trap, he had been curious; a desire to peek through the tightly drawn shades of Will’s life had motivated him to pry. He had expected sleepwalking, though he had not anticipated having to rescue Will from a rooftop. He opened the cover, the scent of dust filling his nose, and he thought of what was happening now. He was protecting Will Graham. He was watching over him. It was what the man needed.

Hannibal tried to convince himself that his intentions were innocent and failed. He could not lie to himself and say that he was not attracted to the man, attracted to his body, haloed in light, to the way his mind worked. He could not lie to himself and say that he would not accept the chance to wind the profiler up like a child’s toy and see how far, how deep, his mind would take him into madness. He could not deny that the boy’s blood and guts sang a very sweet song to him. But yet here he was, a solemn watchdog, watching for any sign that Will’s mind was leading him to harm. It was possible, thought Hannibal, that his heart, hands, and mind were not entirely in agreement. 

He shook his head and stared resolutely at the first page of the album, some dead relative’s signature, some long-passed date. He was not used to the nausea that internal struggles would bring. Every aspect of his nature was yanking him in a different direction, and he found that he could not decide which part of himself to listen to. The beast was torn between rutting and devouring; his human self was torn between protecting and destroying. 

Hannibal turned the page with his slender fingers. The first picture was of a very young Will, his hair a tousled mess on his head, squished under a fisherman’s cap. A small fish dangled from one of his hands; his rod was held proudly in the other. Hannibal was taken aback by the brilliant smile that stretched across the boy’s face, white and crooked. This book was a celebration of better times, the wendigo thought, happier times. He wondered who had taken the picture. 

Hannibal turned the page again. The following pictures seem to have all been taken on the same trip; here Will was sitting pensively on the dock, here he was with another fish, here he was pulling a face for the camera. Tucked in the corner of the page was a picture of a man with a vague and faint smile ghosting his face. Based on the curls, Hannibal assumed that this was Will’s father. Based on the smudge of a thumb in the top of the frame, it was Will who had taken this photo. 

He flipped through the rest of the photobook at his leisure. He noted that there were remarkably few women in Will’s life. There were no photos of grandparents, aunts or uncles, playmates. No photos of a mother. Hannibal supposed that one did not need a mother to grow up, but even Will’s early life looked so hopelessly lonely. Here was a picture of him holding a baby alligator, open-mouthed and angry. Here was a picture of him alone again, trees rising on either side of him like sentinels as he trekked down some wooded path. There was a distant affection in these grainy polaroids; here, in this book, were words unspoken, a father’s love crammed between two leather covers. Hannibal wondered if Will took after his father’s personality, too, if all that gruff distaste for closeness was genetic. He wondered what weight the elder Graham’s silence had held. Could Will see these photographs and taste the strange, arms-length love in them, or was his childhood pocked by loneliness? 

The man shifted in his sleep, knocking the headboard against the wall. Hannibal glanced up at him and admired his face, peaceful now in sleep, spotted with dewy drops of sweat. If he could fasten his jaws around the sorrow that plagued Will, burst it open wide so that its melancholy blood painted them all, he would. 

He stayed there for the rest of the night until the sun began to rise from its bed, and then he slipped out the back door, the growling of the dogs fading behind him, their master murmuring a tired word of comfort. Hannibal trekked forward into the woods, but he remembered the sound of Will’s voice rough with sleep, branded like an arias into his skull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The semester's almost done, yay! As always, thanks for reading--every comment, kudo, and bookmark is greatly appreciated. Feel free to drop me a line at pigwingstoheaven on Tumblr!


	7. The Yoke of Guilt

VII.

Will Graham was used to bad dreams. He had nightmares as a child, fantasies of exotic creatures that would chase him through storybook landscapes. Monsters still haunted him at night, but they took a different form now. Will Graham recognized their faces, their voices, the bloody prints of their hands.

The night that—unbeknownst to him—Hannibal had rescued him from the roof, Will had been dreaming of Garrett Jacob Hobbs. In his dream, he and the psychiatrist were at the Shrike’s house. A beady-eyed grackle pecked at the feeder hanging in the front yard, its feathers streaked with glossy blue in the sun. He was in the car, though Hannibal was not beside him; the door on his side was open, but he was nowhere to be found. 

Will unbuckled his seatbelt with little grace, swinging his legs out of the seat and stepping out of the car—and his bed. There were hoof prints leading from the vehicle; he paid them no mind. The scene around Hobbs’ house was too quiet, too stiflingly silent, and Will was struck with the urge to move towards the eerie tomb, to investigate, to search for a sign of life that was not the bird at the feeder who stared at him with its white eyes. With great hesitance he stepped towards the house, and the grackle flew to the roof with a harsh laugh, pacing along the shingles, bobbing its head at Will, mouth split wide into a screaming grin. When the profiler pulled his gun from its holster and slammed his way through the door, the bird laughed once more and then turned its attention to something in the woods somewhere. 

Words fell from his mouth but he could not hear them in this stuffy dream state; later, he realized that he was likely reenacting the raid on Hobbs’ house, repeating his dialogue like a practiced actor. He rounded the corner to the kitchen, jaw clenched and trembling, and was greeted with the sizzle of eggs in a skillet. 

Hobbs was cooking placidly at the range, scraping the browning edge of the egg off of the pan. The kitchen was empty aside from him; there was not a girl, nor a mother, nor Hannibal Lecter. Will looked beyond Hobbs and saw that the kitchen opened up to a yawning black forest, the back wall of the house gone, melted into trees. A squirrel hopped down from a pine and onto Hobbs’ counter, carding through its whiskers with its paws. The Shrike did not pay the beast nor the breeze any mind. 

Very calmly, the killer flipped a piece of bacon. His glazed eyes slid up to Will. A shiver trickled up Will’s spine as he studied Hobbs; he lowered his gun and watched the fat of the bacon—who had it been?—bubble and pop. Hobbs lifted his spatula from the pan and crossed his arms over his chest, casting Will an expectant look. Waiting. 

A drop of grease bulged from the spatula and splattered on the floor. Something moved in the woods somewhere.

As often happens in dreams, Will’s feet began to lead him somewhere before his mind could make a coherent thought. He padded past Hobbs and into that lush, dark forest; the lovely woods lured him in, pulled him into its breast with the warm embrace of a lover. The shadows had weight and they laid on him like a blanket, settling on his shoulders, a cape of decadent black that swallowed the trees he passed and painted everything behind him with darkness. The Shrike watched him go with upturned lips, and the squirrel on the counter began to palm at the eggshells. 

Will was drawn to the cold heart of the woods, walking deeper and deeper into the shade. The way was not straight—occasionally he had to duck down to avoid the snarled roots and wrinkled trunks of overturned trees—but his body seemed to know where it was going, even if his mind did not. Occasionally deer and birds blurred past him, their tawny hides and blue-black feathers mixing like acrylics with the greens and browns of the foliage, fleeing from something in the woods somewhere. They hopped and squawked off into the swallowing black streaming behind him.

Just when he felt as if he had been walking forever, Will came across a clearing, a break in the endless trees that was no better lit than the rest of the dark forest. He was not surprised to see the spread body of Cassie Boyle there, nor the glint of the dead stag’s eyes. Both girl and beast were tinged a rich black, and the deer’s throat was covered in a layer of feathers that rippled gently with each gust of wind. Will found himself paralyzed, staring at the umbral tableau from earlier in the week. He recognized it as a piece of reality even in this strange setting. That was a common thread that ran through Will’s dreams—regardless of the fantastic shadows he wandered through, there was always something from the waking hours there, for his mind could not hope to best his daily horrors. He traced the upwards sweep of the stag’s antlers with his eyes. It was elegant in a way, he thought. Sophisticated.

He was very cold.

Held rapt as he was by the geometry of the corpses, it was hard to tell how much time had passed in this ethereal dreamscape. Suddenly though, like a gunshot ringing clear and sharp, he was seized with a great terror, a sense of awareness that was somehow both acute and foggy; his dream-self wanted to flee, but found that its feet were rooted to the ground. Will could not explain how, but suddenly he knew that _there was something in the woods somewhere_. 

It was a beast of teeth, surely, of night. He watched the dead deer and saw it blink, saw an ear cock and twist.

 _Run_ , he bid his legs, his terror swelling now, spilling out of his dream, rolling off of his forehead in rivulets of sweat. His heart was hammering the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun, and his muscles and joints locked up tighter as he tried to move them, and right when he thought he might pop them free, Will was grabbed around the waist by two broad hands, pulled back towards Hobbs’ house, swift and certain through the crushing black as if the gravitational forces had shifted to center on the Shrike’s macabre kitchen. The trees that rose from the dark whizzed by; the beasts stared as he passed. He wondered if that thing in the woods had him or if it was Hobbs’ hand wrapped tight around his hips. He could feel nails, ridges of bone, skin like soft leather, cold—Will tried to squirm around to see, but his dream-self was paralyzed. He mustered all the strength in his head to break the chains that bound his sleeping body up. 

The explosion of willpower caused him to wake then with what he thought was a scream but was more of a whimper. Relief flooded over him; it was short-lived, for he realized swiftly that his paralysis had not snapped with the breaking of his dream. Worse still, something was still _holding_ him. He wondered what hallucination had leapt from his mind. He prayed that it was a creature of smoke and dust, an apparition that held form to no one but him. As he moved robotically— _you’re sleepwalking_ , he reassured himself—he could see a black hand wrapped around his wrist, its fingers long and thin. He flicked his eyes up and saw the hunched form of a midnight beast. Antlers black as onyx rose from its head, and the knobs of its spine rolled with every movement. The ticking of something on the roof encouraged him to look down further—the beast had hooves, the fetlock fraying into black feathers.

The beast’s appearance reassured him with its familiarity. It was not unlike the other creatures that walked through the halls of his mind, black and sleek and covered in crow’s feathers, which made the panicked man confident that this was nothing more than a vivid hallucination. He let the stag-man lead him back into his house. This was familiar, and the wood was cold and the nails bit against his feet; this was _real_ , even if his company was not. 

His body shuffled forward of its own accord; he let it. Will Graham had been here many times before, unable to control his actions, yet aware. These stints of sleep paralysis—often accompanied by hallucinations such as this—had once terrified him, and once he had broken the icy grip they held on him, he would often run to the bathroom, vomit up bitter bile, and be unable to sleep for the remainder of the night. But months and months of “practice”, as he humorlessly called it, had taught him to control his panic, to let his rebellious body take control. It hadn’t led him to harm yet. _Yet_. 

The apparition turned around after it hopped through the window and Will was surprised to see that it shared many of the angular features of Dr. Lecter. He brushed this off as coincidence; after all, hadn’t he just seem the doctor that evening? Perhaps the part of his mind that was still bitter about him finally deciding to see a shrink was attempting to besmirch the good doctor. The profiler elected not to dwell on it in his drowsy state. He had realized long ago that putting too much thought into his hallucinations drove him mad. Still, as the creature climbed through his window, he felt a pang of guilt that his mind was sullying the psychiatrist so. 

The beast wrapped its hands around his waist and pulled him through the window. He was surprised when they were warm, and wondered if perhaps one of his dogs had come out to guide him back to bed, pressings its furry head to his side to push him through the window. It would not be the first time that they had nosed their master back to his nest of towels. 

_That thing is not real_ , he thought again, just to reassure himself. He thought it over and over as he was led through the dusty guest room, down the stairs, back to bed with gentle hands—no, gentle canine poking and prodding. Just the dogs. _Just the dogs_. Not Dr. Lecter’s stern face looming above him, somehow both critical and reassuring. After he was put back in bed, hooves—no, claws—ticked back to the couch. His paralysis was melting off his body steadily, and eventually he could shift in bed, flop onto his side and stare at the sofa with glazed eyes. Sleep was reclaiming him quickly, but he kept his eyes open long enough to study the vision for a moment more. It sat cross-legged on the tattered couch, holding something in its spindly fingers. As blackness spilled in his mind once more, Will thought that it looked like one of his grandfather’s old photo albums.

xxxxx

The sunlight clawed through the louvers of the windows and Will woke with a jolt. When he opened his eyes he was met with seven solemn gazes, the morning stare of his obedient pack, who only rose from their beds when their master did. They did not have to wait long to spring up from their blankets and pillows; Will rarely enjoyed lingering in bed, since it usually reeked of last night’s bad dreams. His terrors had been saturated into the mattress and spread like an invisible stain.

The dogs danced around his feet as he shuffled to the door, pink tongues darting out to lap at his legs and ankles in earnest affection, and then streamed out in a stampede when he flung the door open. Will watched for a sleepy moment as they charged around the yard, stopping occasionally to sniff or urinate, before propping the door open and heading back into the kitchen. There, the man made his morning joe with his decrepit coffeemaker. As the coffee trickled into the pot, he pulled a carton of eggs from the fridge and a pan from the bottom cupboard, whose wood was scratched and scuffed with the workings of excited claws, setting the latter on the stove and twisting the knob of his range. The gas clicked stubbornly before leaping into a flame. One by one, his pack trickled in as the eggs popped on the stove, and they circled in their beds, casting their master pleading looks as they settled back down in hopes of getting a piece of his breakfast.

These lazy Saturday mornings had become ritualistic, trance-like; they were times of heightened and fallen awareness, a period where Will reflected into the grease on his black coffee, combed through his nightmares and thoughts and interactions. Fridays usually brought the worst nightmares, which Will attributed to the wrapping up of his week of investigations and not to the six or seven fingers of whiskey that he usually drank. 

He rummaged through the baggage of last night. Will was remarkably good at remembering his dreams; it had been a blessing in his youth, when hazy ethereal footage of writhing bodies had been replayed over and over in his mind, though he often felt that it was curse now. He had dreamt of Hobbs last night; that wasn’t unusual, for he had dreamed of Hobbs almost every day since he had watched him crumple into his counter. He took a sip of coffee and moved to the next image: the forest. It had been feverish, perhaps, but a common enough motif, especially in the halls of one’s mind. He flipped through mental snapshots of Cassie Boyle, painted black and mounted on a deer’s head. He recalled the feeling of hands on his waist, clammy. Bone-quivering coldness. He coughed as his throat constricted around a piece of egg. 

What had haunted him the most from his dream was the nagging feeling that he had not been alone and then waking to find that part of it had leapt from the folds of his brain. He wondered if it had been the strange blending of man ( _Hannibal_ , he thought with a sigh) and deer that had been tailing him throughout his nightmare, lurking in the woods somewhere. 

Will felt a hot embarrassment in his chest that the abomination had worn the face of the doctor; his own bitterness had apparently branded Dr. Lecter a monster in is subconscious. Will often found himself wrestling with the lingering taste of bad first impressions, even if the person had since redeemed himself; it was a nasty habit, one that had been impressed upon him by his father, who treated every human with suspicion. When Will had first met his grandfather, the man had made a sly and nasty comment about his mother, whom Will had never known yet felt fiercely protective of. His young ears had not been deaf to his grandfather’s cruel words, and it had taken years for Will to warm up to him. His father had tolerated this churlish behavior; Will suspected he may have been amused by it. He regret that the habit had stuck with him into his adult years. He knew he would have to move past his initial butting-of-heads with Dr. Lecter in order to progress their relationship to something beneficial to him. Evidentially, something in him still felt the river-deep resent of a horse given the bit for the first time. 

With the taste of metal in his mouth, he thought back to those cold, phantom touches on his hips. The lingering sensation of being held made a shiver roll down his spine, and Will refilled his mug in an attempt to derail this train of thought before he rode it too far. There was a time he would have dwelled on it, but his feathered and antlered monsters had become quotidian in the wake of this Hobbs business. Besides, his head was already starting to ache, and he had run out of aspirin. 

After finishing his eggs, feeding the dogs, and drowning his prickling headache with the rest of the coffee, Will showered, dressed, and started his car. It was not until he had been driving on the deer-laden backroads for half an hour that he knew where he was going. Shame made him flick his blinker, and the image of Hannibal as a beast made him slide into the lane where the sign read BALTIMORE—60 MILES. He remembered Hannibal’s promise of wine; Will knew of a liquor shop there, a place that made his wallet wheeze, and though he knew he couldn’t really afford it, he thought that perhaps providing Hannibal with a bottle of wine for their next session would ease the guilt sitting heavy in his stomach. 

The drive was monotonous, bogged with traffic, but Will found a strange pleasure in it. Driving was mindless enough to allow a comfortable buzz to vibrate in his skull, drowning out the traces of his dream that stuck to his conscious like charcoal from a fire, lingering and black. By the time he got to Baltimore, he felt relatively at ease. 

He took a parking spot far enough away so that he could enjoy the walk to the liquor store. The cool air felt good in his lungs, biting; winter was his favorite season with its barrenness and cold. As he walked, he looked into the windows of shops decorated with holly and silver. Many of the displays held objects too fine for him to afford and he felt a strange stab of resentment at these gaudy displays of wealth. His bitterness melted into a sick and sad jealousy as he watched a man lift his young child up to better view a display of tinsel deer; he imagined the comfortable weight of the little girl in his hands, the warmth of a rosy cheek against his, and he thought of how though he loved the winter, he hated the holidays. Happy families everywhere, a carrot dangling on a stick that he would never be able to reach. He bit the inside of his cheek and strode resolutely down the rest of the street until he reached the shop. A peal of laughter trailed behind him, sweet and high.

When he opened the door he was greeted with the scent of wine and the chime of a bell. Will peered down the aisles until he found the wine section and began to peruse the sea of burgundy bottles, noting that the brands were arranged roughly by price. With a sigh, he walked to the end of the aisle of reds, knowing that it was unlikely that Dr. Lecter supplemented his dapper life with $20 bottles of booze. 

Bottled blood, he thought, squinting at the labels. The sea of red was making him anxious, the price tags more anxious still, and he was just about to round the corner to look at their selection of blush wines, when he heard a familiar voice ring down the aisle.

“Hello, Will!”

_Of course._

It was just Will’s luck that the man he wanted to see the least was strolling down the aisle towards him, a paper bag balanced in one gloved hand. Hannibal looked delighted as his stoic face allowed; Will was having a hard time meeting the doctor’s bright gaze, so he stared at the collar of his brown pea coat instead. “Hello, Dr. Lecter.”

“I had pegged you as a whiskey type of man, not a wine drinker. What brings you to Baltimore besides alcohol?” 

He couldn’t look at this man. Every time he glanced up to meet Hannibal’s gaze, the man’s visage was replaced with that of the black monster, his skin turned to ink, his eyes cruel. He could not shake the image from his head; his stomach churned with the unpleasant cramping that guilt brought. _Dr. Lecter has offered you kindness, and yet you make him into a beast._

“I—uhm—I was…” Will spluttered for a moment, trying to find a subtle way to say _I came here so that I can make myself feel less guilty for not trusting you by buying you things_ before Hannibal graciously rescued him, asking, “Do you have plans tonight, Will? Would you care to join me for dinner?”

Dinner, then. A chance to convince the stubborn pits of his mind that Dr. Lecter was not a fairytale villain. He swallowed hard and replied, “Sure, but let me buy the wine. Please.” It sounded desperate, he realized.

Hannibal graciously ignored the awkwardness and merely inclined his head a fraction. “I assure you that that is not necessary.” 

“Let it be an apology for my shitty behavior last week.”

“You have already apologized, Will. It was quite a while ago now. Besides, on the list of things done to offend me, that hardly merited note. It was not as if your behavior was unearned by Jack and I.” Hannibal grinned wryly, and Will has suddenly envious of his oil-slick way of diffusing a conversation. Offering an awkward grin of his own, he replied, 

“Since you’re my therapist now, I can tell you that it’s been bothering me since that day.” 

A beat of silence, and then Hannibal’s lip quirked upwards. “Might I suggest a nice chianti then?” He tapped a bottle on the shelf with a gloved finger. Will looked at the price tag and noted that it was probably significantly cheaper than what Hannibal normally drank, but the kind of wine Will would buy if he wanted to drink himself into his grave and not feel like scum about it. He considered buying the next most-expensive bottle before deciding to simply go with Hannibal’s generous suggestion.

“Would an early dinner suit you better, or something later?”

“Earlier would be better. It’s a long drive back to Wolf Trap.” 

“Five o’clock, then. I’ll roast pheasants. Enjoy your errands, Will—I look forward to having you at my table.” The doctor offered him one last slick smile before heading out the door, the bell jingling cheerfully behind him.

Will swore he could hear the tapping of hooves on pavement. He felt the urge to strangle his suspicion of the doctor away and sweep any evidence of the strange hallucinations under the rug. 

He killed the rest of the time before dinner in a coffee shop grading papers, grateful that he had left his school bag in the car overnight. By the time he got through the stack, now ticked with red, it was nearly time for dinner. As he texted Hannibal to confirm his address, he realized that the action was entirely too mundane and cordial, almost _friendly_. Though he wanted to build a good relationship with the doctor professionally, Will had zero desire to dig beneath that surface of formality. What could Hannibal and he possibly have in common anyways besides crime scenes and murder tableaus? What could they offer one another in a friendship? Will had found that solitude him fit him better, if only because it blocked the disappointment that attachments had brought him in the past. 

Will wasn’t surprised to see that Hannibal’s house was as severe and stoic as its inhabitant. There was something almost fairytale-esque about the building, from the subtle, archaic decorations to the icicles dripping like blood from the windowpanes. As Will walked up the shrub-lined walkway to the residence, he noted that the flag on Hannibal’s mailbox was up, and elected to fetch its contents. _Manners and etiquette are important to him,_ Alana had said. The least he could do was try to convince Hannibal that he wasn’t raised in a barn. 

He told himself not to pry, but it was too tempting to peek at the mail in his hands. The latest issue of _National Geographic_ , a bill, and a strange envelope made of heavy paper. He ran his finger along its back and felt the raised bumps of a wax seal. He wondered if there was some sort of abhorrence towards email among the rich and wealthy, and felt a stab of resentment bubble up at this gaudy correspondence. _Stop it,_ he hissed to himself, _This is exactly what you were trying to solve by coming here._

Will did not look at the face of the letter, so he did not see that it was from one Robert Lecter, sent all the way from the Lithuanian countryside and penned by an urgent hand. He likely would have thought nothing of it and mocked the curl of the elder Lecter’s script. 

The doorbell echoed loudly and ominously through Hannibal’s house, a deep growl of a bell that was decidedly unwelcoming. Will adjusted the wine under his arm nervously as the door swung open. Hannibal smiled when he saw who his visitor was, and Will noted that he was dressed down a little, his jacket abandoned and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Will, come in. Dinner is almost ready.” 

“I got your mail,” Will said, shrugging his coat off and passing it to Hannibal’s outstretched hand, “Figured I’d save you a trip back out into the cold later.” 

“Ah, thank you. It’s supposed to dip below freezing here, did you see? I’m sure that it will be even colder in Wolf Trap. I hope you have a good heating system—Alana Bloom mentioned that your house is quite old.” Will did not know that Hannibal had sat on his couch and shivered in the piercing cold of his home, wondering how Will survived the winters.

“You and Alana Bloom were talking about me?”

“Yes. All good things, of course.” Hannibal smiled and took the mail from Will. The profiler watched him hesitate when he looked at the stiff ivory envelope, his brows knitting together minutely, almost unnoticeably. “She voiced her concerns about you. Do she and Jack Crawford ever agree? She seems hell-bent on railing against him.”

“They usually do, though their arguments tend to be nuclear when they don’t. I think he’s a little frightened of her—she’s not afraid to really give it to him. She was your student, right?” As he was led through Hannibal’s house and to his kitchen, Will’s neck was on a swivel, taking in the gaudy yet tasteful décor, the expensive paintings and mounted bones. It felt more like a museum than a living space, packed with books and oddities rather than domestic comforts. 

“Correct. We were both attending a lecture by a guest speaker at Johns Hopkins’ when we met. She disagreed with many of the speaker’s points and argued her own ideas. She was a fantastic student. I never took another because I know that they would all disappoint me.” 

There was a pause before Hannibal added, “She knows what it is like to be voiceless, a woman in a field that is still ruled by men, and she does not want you to lose your own at the FBI. That is why she is concerned, and why she approached me.” And then he said nothing more of the matter, simply watched Will nod shakily. “Come then, let’s check the meat.”

When they entered the kitchen, Will realized that _here_ is where the heart of Hannibal’s house was, here is the source of its great pulse, its life. Every person has a room like this, Will knew, a place that was entirely theirs, private and sacred. Typically it is the person’s bedroom, but this kitchen vibrated with everything that defined Hannibal. It was decorated far simpler than the rest of the residence; stainless steel surfaces juxtaposed the rustic feel of the accents and décor, modern chic blended with vintage charm, much like the man himself. There was a single chair in the corner, nestled by the bookshelf. Intimate, Will thought, as much as a stage for performance as it was a mat for meditation. He watched the man don a pair of oven mitts and pull the pheasants from the oven with a flourish, bumping the door back shut with his hip. Hannibal basted the drippings over the birds, gave them a critical once-over, and then left them to cool, turning to tend to something else on the stove. 

As the doctor finished their meal, Will glanced over to the bookshelf, comfortably crammed with cookbooks and scientific texts. When he walked over to take a closer look at the titles, he noted something black and gleaming in the corner of one of the shelves. The bust of a stern-looking man stared out at him from the shadows, his stone eyes empty, the shape of his face similar to Hannibal’s, though not quite the same—both bust and man shared those same angular cheekbones, but the statue had a decidedly softer quality, ironically. Will looked closer and saw the curve of antlers rising from the bust’s head. His heart thrummed a little faster and he thought of last night’s demon, the monstrous imago of Hannibal Lecter that had leapt from his dreams. _You’re seeing things,_ he reassured himself. The Hobbs business, all those antlers and carvings, was getting to him. The guilt was making his mind fuzzy. _Just a coincidence. Just a daydream._ Hannibal’s voice broke through the haze of dread that had swathed him, though it was murky, as though Will were underwater and Hannibal above. 

“What?”

“I said, if you take your seat, I will bring your plate out.” 

Will swallowed and nodded, lowering his eyes to avoid Hannibal’s gaze, which held something sharp now. He wondered if the man was annoyed at him, annoyed with his sullenness and silence. The onyx eyes of the bust followed him as he left to find his seat. 

Leda, spread prone before the swan, greeted him when he entered Hannibal’s dining room. It was a surprisingly shadowed room, the walls a deep and rich blue save for one that was painted with a mural of trees and lined with pots of succulents. As he waited for Hannibal, Will wondered how often the fireplace was used, if Hannibal had bought the spiraling horns laid on the mantle or if he had shot the beast who had once owned them himself, and where he got the tacky arrangements on the tables that bristled with quills and feathers. Taking his seat—he hoped that he assumed correctly by taking the seat along the length of the table, not the head—Will noted that the centerpiece sitting in the center of the royal purple table runner was full of the dainty bones of birds. 

Will was staring at the empty sockets of a sparrow’s skull when Hannibal entered with two plates. Steam rose from the dish that was set before Will, curling up from the delicately browned meat. “Herb-roasted pheasant and potatoes baked with balsamic vinegar and thyme. Comfort food for a cold winter’s day.” The psychiatrist looked hugely pleased with himself as he took his own seat, his lips twisted smugly and the flick of his wrist jaunty as he unfolded his napkin. Will wondered if he was always like this when serving others, or if perhaps he was delighted that he had gotten his prickly patient to spend time with him outside of the office. He wondered too if Hannibal often invited his patients to dinner, of if this was a consequence of their unusual relationship as both coworkers and doctor and patient. 

Looking down at the meal now, Will saw that streaks of autumnal red and brown sauces decorated the plate, seeming to form the branching sweep of an antler. Will stared at the dish for a moment, missing the curious inclination of Hannibal’s head, and he wondered if he was reading too much into the dribbles of marinade. Cutting into his slice of the bird, Will opted to ignore the lingering traces of last night’s dream that had stalked him to Hannibal’s house. “If this is your idea of comfort food, I’d love to see what you consider a fancy meal. It smells delicious.”

For once, a sincere compliment. The food did smell divine, far better than the takeout he likely would’ve brought back home with him, and when he brought a piece of the pheasant to his mouth, he nearly moaned at how the skin flaked into his mouth, buttery and seasoned just enough for Will to taste a little of something besides the meat’s natural flavor. It had been a while since he had eaten anything good and rich, Will realized as he popped a piece of potato into his mouth. The Shrike case had weakened his appetite some. When he admitted this out loud to the doctor, Hannibal smiled and said, “Now that you’ve told me that, I’ll make it my mission to feed you as much as possible.” 

Will smiled at that, a little uneasy at the offer but appreciative nonetheless. He realized that the seeds of a friendship, awkward and new, were being sown at this table, perhaps had already been sown when he had climbed down from Hannibal’s balcony and met him on his level. Against his wishes, here was something beyond a professional relationship, beyond the cordial discussion of texts and theories. When Hannibal had invited him to dinner, he had done it sincerely, not out of politeness, not because of the binding of social rules and etiquettes. Hannibal Lecter wanted to know him better, Will surmised, peel apart the thick skin he wore, meet him as an equal, not as a patient, not as a colleague. 

The profiler’s jaw worked harder on the meat as trepidation flared in the gallows of his chest and a rope swayed as he remembered the disappointment that friendships brought him, the loneliness that constricted his neck when he tried to engage, but he found himself meeting Hannibal’s amber gaze. Hannibal had peeked into his skull; he knew what lurked there. Will found that he could not resist the easy smile of one who might take him as he was, beasts and all, blood and all, death and all.

xxx

Both the snow and night fell upon Hannibal’s house, and loneliness too lay like a blanket upon his roof now that Will Graham had gone.

The loss of his company made his gut ache and he chided himself when he caught himself moping a little. Hannibal argued to himself that he barely knew Will Graham, that the profiler was damaged, that he did not seem interested in friendship, but the thrill of meeting someone who could perhaps understand him, understand that the laws of his life were the laws of both beast and man, was too potent to resist. As much as friendship repulsed Will Graham, it excited Hannibal Lecter. He had found himself nearly vibrating with the simple joy of enjoying a meal with a companion and, as he had handed Will his jacket, had been fumbling for a way to ask the man if he wished to join him again without overwhelming him. 

At least now he could look at the letter from his uncle that had been in the back of his mind all night. He had placed it beneath the _National Geographic_ so as to put it out of sight and out of mind, but it had teased him with its presence. It was not like Robert to write often—typically the elder Lecter only wrote to inform Hannibal of money deposited into his account or a birth in the family—and he was curious as to what his uncle thought was worth his knowing. Hannibal gut the envelope with his engraved letter opener and pulled out its contents; to his surprise, there was only a single sheet of thick parchment inside, and when he unfolded it, he saw that it was sparsely filled.

_Beloved nephew,_

_We expect you home by spring._

_R. Lecter_

_And so it is_ , thought Hannibal, tracing over Robert Lecter’s swirling signature with his thumb. _And so it is, that I am finally being called home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! This chapter gave me a hard time and went through a few iterations. Combine that with the fact that I've been working more days than I've had off since I've gotten home from college, and you've get the recipe for some very slow fic writing. 
> 
> Luckily, I have the next chapter started and I have a solid plan of where it's going, so (hopefully) it won't take another month to write! Thank you as always for reading, commenting, kudoing, and sharing the story. I really appreciate it! And, as always, you can find me on tumblr at pigwingstoheaven.


	8. Tourist Trap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note, because it's a strange word: a fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers. It's not used here like, "Hannibal's fetish for plaid." Also, just to make myself feel better, a warning: there's a tiny tiny bit of homophobia in this chapter. You have to squint to see it, it's really more implied than stated, but it makes me feel better if people have a warning juuust in case.

VIII.

“Will. _Will_.” 

Jack stood in the doorway of the lecture hall, gruff and unhappy, staring at the profiler expectantly. Annoyance and concern were painted in equal measures on his face, making the lines of stress and age seem more severe. He had asked a question, Will thought. No—he had said his name. Will’s brows furrowed together and popped apart as he stared at the agent, wondering when he had entered his classroom. Slowly he clawed his way up to awareness; he had not even realized that he had been in a daze.

“Is everything alright, Will?” Jack had a case file in his hand, momentarily forgotten. Will focused his eyes on that to avoid Jack’s pinning stare. 

“Everything’s fine.” Hadn’t everything been fine? He tried to remember the past hour. Had he had class? The rows were empty and the lights had been dimmed. How long had Jack been standing there?

“What’re you doing, Will?” Jack’s voice had a strange cadence to it. Hesitance, Will realized. His words were the moment of suspension on a diving board, the jump up, the pause…

The plunge. The question sank in and he let his eyes snap back into focus. He was sitting in front of his laptop, fingers poised stiffly on the keyboard. Google’s colorful logo was on the screen and the typing cursor flashed eagerly; he wondered how long he had been staring at it. He dropped his eyes to his keyboard, mumbling, “I’m sorry, I must’ve dozed off. I didn’t sleep well last night. What’s that?” Desperately, he reached for the case file, steering the conversation away from himself. Jack didn’t relent.

“Did I push you too far with the Shrike case, Will? Did I let you get too close?” When had his voice gotten so loud? There was a great deal of anger buried there, resent towards someone else but unleashed on him. He wondered if Alana or Dr. Lecter had had a choice word for Jack after remembering what Hannibal had said last night in regards to Dr. Bloom. Will suddenly felt very small in his desk chair, an insect dwarfed by the livid shadow of a bird’s wing. 

“No! No, I just—I just haven’t been sleeping well. It’s normal, it’s fine. It doesn’t have anything to do with Hobbs.” He had sleepwalked again after dinner at Dr. Lecter’s, stumbling from his house and into the biting, subzero cold. He hadn’t wandered far before the black beast had tracked him down, its eyes glowing like silver headlamps in the dark, and led him back home. At the time, he had reassured himself that it was just one of his dogs again. In the waking hours of the day, he had felt a sick insistence that that was not the case roiling deep in his belly, though he was unsure what else to blame the phenomena on. 

The manila case folder was dropped on his desk. “Well, you can stop thinking about Hobbs now. I have something else for you.”

“Oh. What about the relics they found?”

“Don’t worry about them. Hobbs is dead—we need you focusing on people who are still out there.” His words had the bite of an accusation. 

Pressure was beginning to build up behind Will’s eyes. “There’s a new killer.” 

“Bodies keep washing up along Lake Borgne in New Orleans.”

The mention of the Big Easy caused Will to stiffen some in his chair. This was not a place he needed to be reminded of nor visit, not like this, not with his latex-clad hands buried deep in some cadaver’s chest. His head started to throb as he opened the case file with an angry, stiff jerk of his wrist. Glossy photos of bodies filled the portfolio, taken from various angles; flipping through the pictures quickly, Will judged that there had to be at least four victims. First, there was a shot of three of them, all lined up, covered tastefully with sheets. Then one on an examination table, uncovered, marked with clean, red cuts. Next a shot inside the mouth of one—there were teeth missing, the holes where they should have been bloody. Two bodies uncovered now, vivid red lines stretching across the same places for each cadaver. It was surgical, Will thought, flipping through the rest of the stack. Almost factory-like in its precision and uniformity. 

“They’re missing the same parts. The teeth are interesting—why take those?” Will carded through the stack of pictures again, slower this time, so that he could savor every bloody gap, every clean cut. “Fingernails, too. And…” He pulled the autopsy report out and began to skim through that. “Bones, but small ones. That explains the cuts up the hand and foot. Someone’s making _something_ ; that’s why all the parts they took were so small. Jewelry, maybe.”

“Something small.”

“Yes, something small. Maybe something that they’re selling. People buy pendants with animal bones and skulls all the time. People—mostly tourists—in New Orleans are especially keen to marvel at the grotesque and eerie, with all of the bastardization of voodoo that goes on down there. People just love taking all of Disney’s bad ideas and running with them. You could tell someone that what they’re holding are bird bones, and they wouldn’t know the difference, would they?” 

“So we’re looking for artisans, crafters, shop-owners, the like.”

“Anyone who runs some sort of retail business down there. Have someone start looking online for artists based in Louisiana too. They might be shipping them out rather than selling them directly.” Will slid his glasses off and ground the heel of his hands into his eyeballs, trying to relieve the growing tension in his skull. “It might be narrowing the search too much, though. The killer might just be keeping what they make for their own use, like Hobbs.”

“Well, someone in the community might know something anyways. Might have a client who took a jewelry making class, or a customer who asks a lot of questions. You’ll have to see.” 

“Me?”

 

“Who else would I send for something like this, Graham?” 

“Right.” A beat of pregnant silence fell over the pair, and Will’s vision began to blacken at the edges as he stared blankly at his desk. There was something coming, a question, an order, and Will thought he had an idea what it is. _”Did I let you get too close?”_ Jack had asked. No, he wouldn’t let him sojourn to Louisiana by himself, not when he thought he had broken Will, not when others, Jack’s peers and higher-ups, were surely wagging accusatory fingers at him…

The quiet popped like a balloon as Jack said: “I’m sending Dr. Lecter with you.”

Irritation flared briefly in Will and then died quietly. It would seem that the dinner that weekend had been conveniently timed, for he could no longer muster much anger towards Dr. Lecter, not when they had spoken as equals, enjoyed each other’s quiet company. Not when Dr. Lecter had bribed his good nature with rich food. He thought of the old saying that the quickest way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and he rubbed at his eyes in irritation, almost ashamed at how quickly that meal that melted the residual ice clinging to Will’s impression of Hannibal. “If that would make you feel better.” 

“Good,” Jack said, crossing his arms over his chest. Will imagined he was suspicious that he had rolled over so easily, but was pleased when he didn’t comment on it. “That means that I can get my beauty sleep while you hunt down that killer in Louisiana. Your flight is at 8 AM on Thursday—Alana is taking over your classes.”

Jack left then, no goodbye, and Will was left to process the words in his mind, still sluggish from the restless weekend. They made sentences slowly in his head, and by the time he sorted out his thoughts, the red and dying sun was bleeding through the blinds in his office, staining his back with bars of light.

xxxxx

“This is a little strange for me,” Will admitted to Hannibal over their first lunch in New Orleans. “Coming back to places that used to be my home always is. Did I tell you that I used to live here? We had a dingy little houseboat.”

Hannibal swallowed the piece of catfish he had been chewing. “Was this when you were a child?”

“Yes. My father and I moved around a lot. He was a fisherman, so he just followed the work. It was—it was nice down here. I think we stayed here the longest. Three years, maybe.” Will took long pauses between his sentences, his voice distant, almost wistful in its softness. “Yeah, that was the longest we stayed anywhere. Sometimes we moved after a few months. Just constantly criss-crossing the country…spend some time on the Great Lakes, shimmy on down to Florida when the fish stopped biting…I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear about this. It’s just—being here is just a little strange for me.”

“I am happy to listen, Will. You know why Jack sent me with you, correct? He was honest with you?”

“You’re here as my psychiatrist.” He bit the inside of his cheek and pushed his own cut of fish around his plate. No veiled truths, this time. What a pair they made, he thought, a man teetering on madness and a man who might hold his leash, if he needed it. He thanked his lucky stars that his dislike for the man had thawed, or else this whole trip would have ended in verbal bloodshed, and Will would have been the one slinking away to lick his wounds. Most of his hatred had dissipated.

_Most_ of it.

“Then unburden your mind, Will, so that you may focus on the task at hand. I am here to help you carry the yoke.” 

“Home was just always such a distance concept to me. I feel at home in Wolf Trap, but I can’t point to a single place from my childhood and say, ‘There’s home’.” The waiter came over with their bills. The doctor motioned for Will to continue talking. “There’s that saying that home is where the heart is, but that’s bullshit. There’s something so comforting about a house, and a street, and a town, and a sense of some sort of identity, some sort of connection somewhere.” 

“We all want some place that we can return to should we feel the sting of nostalgia.” 

“I never have had that. I’ve always felt uprooted.”

After they paid and stepped out of the restaurant, Will said, “I guess here is the closest place I have to a childhood home. I remember it the best—I still could point out where we docked our boat, if they haven’t torn the harbor down.” It was pleasantly cool when they stepped outside, the colder winter finally starting to chip away at the humidity of the Louisiana autumn. Will sighed and surveyed the empty street, shoving his hands into his pocket. “I guess we have to look for shops now.” 

They began a brisk stroll down the avenue, and Will found that he had to take two of his short, clipped strides for every one of Hannibal’s long and loping ones. “Where did you grow up?” he asked, testing the waters of their amicability. He admitted that he was genuinely curious about the man’s past, having been unable to place his accent. 

“Lithuania. My family owns an estate there.” 

“Estate, meaning…?”

“We have a castle, a forest, and quarters for the servants. I come from a family of great wealth. There are certain benefits to having a name that has stuck to the land like moss to a stone, and the growth of a fortune is one of them. There is a poor agricultural village in the valley beneath us. When I was young, I thought little of its existence, and littler of the fact that a fair sum of their wares had gone to supplement my family all throughout history. I have not been back to visit in many years, but I have heard that it is much the same, stuck in an older age. It is quite isolated, where I lived. A little pocket that time has not yet found.”

Will imagined it and found himself thinking of fairy tales. “Do your parents still live there?”

“Ah, no. They passed away long ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Will stared at his shoes and contemplated his knack for tanking conversations. Expecting silence, he turned his attention to the lines of stores and businesses.

“My uncle Robert runs the estate now with his wife, the Lady Murasaki. I have been meaning to visit them but have found myself swamped, as of late.”

“Well. Perhaps over the holidays, then.”

“Perhaps.” 

They fell into an easy quiet then, the calm of companions. Will supposed that this was likely the reason why he was quickly growing to tolerate the doctor more; the man did not feel the need to fill every moment with words and small talk and yet these pauses, where the birds sang and the soft susurrus of the water lapping against the legs of the docks made a quiet din, were not awkward or weighty. 

When they turned onto another street that was laden with small artisan shops, they began to discuss the task at hand. “What are we looking for, exactly?” Hannibal paused before the window of a pottery shop, peering at the graceful Mimbres replicas within.

“Jewelry shops, in my opinion. All of the parts the killer was taking were so small—hand bones, teeth, filaments of muscle. Touristy places, maybe, the kind that try to sell fake voodoo crap.”

“Are those popular?”

“Ooh, yes. Believe me, that stuff _sells_. Most people essentially see voodoo and witchcraft as the same thing, which is quite the misconception. I suppose that doesn’t matter here, though, because if someone were to have a store that collected weird crap and wrote it off as gris-gris, they could make a killing off of the tourists.”

“Were the locals resentful of the tourists here?”

“Sometimes. I never felt that, but I always felt like a tourist myself. I imagine it would be a strange relationship. Tourism keeps a lot of families fed, but people also don’t like outsiders picking around their homes.” 

“Could it be, then, that perhaps our killer is a local, angry with those who would traipse through his city and bastardize the rich heritage of its inhabitants? Perhaps this killer wants to give them exactly what they want. Every time he sells a trinket, he can smile to himself, for he knows what’s buried in the yarn and stitching. Perhaps he is resentful and spiteful.”

“Or maybe he just has a twisted sense of humor. That—huh. That’s actually a good idea.” Will’s brows furrowed together as the wheels of his mind cranked and worked. “What if, then, the victims are tourists themselves? Hang on, let me call Jack so that someone can check on that for us.”

As Will dug out his phone, Hannibal wandered down the street, stopping occasionally to admire the displays in the windows. His claims were based on little more than a hunch, though he was pleased that Will had thought his reasoning sound; regardless of what the man thought of him, he could not deny that he and the doctor made a good team. By the time he got to the end of the street, Will was jogging after him. “Jack said that they’ll call us—what’s this?”

The shelf in the window was draped with rich purple cloth and lined with grinning plastic skulls. A yarn fetish leaned casually against the jaw of one of the craniums and above the display there was a rubber snake, its plastic tongue lolling down lazily. The sign that dangled above them read: THE BYWATER VOODOO EMPORIUM: CHARMS, TRINKETS, AND SOUVINIERS.

“Well,” said Will, “This is exactly the kind of place we’re looking for then. The more crammed it is with tchotchkes and shit, the be—“

“He-e-ey, look what the cat dragged back in! Will Graham!”

The call of his name made his stomach twist sharply in his gut. Will had been hoping to avoid any run-ins with familiar faces, nervously eying the people around him, darting his gaze away when someone looked back in his direction. And the deep voice that rose behind him had a familiarity that made him grit his teeth, made phantom rivulets of blood drip from his nose, onto his lips, to his teeth…

_What happened at school, Will? His father asked from behind the newspaper. He had seen the blood crusted to his son’s chin when he had walked in_

_Nothing._

_Picking fights, Will?_

_No._

_Good._

The elder Graham made it a habit to stay out of the business of other’s lives. He extended the same courtesy to his son. 

“It’s good to see you, Bobby,” he lied, turning around and ignoring the bemused twitch of Hannibal’s lips. Bobby Murphy was a rock of a man, solid and large and abrasive as stone. When cracked open, he did not have the shimmering guts of a geode, but rather the lumpy and irregular ugliness of a conglomerate. He and his brother, Lee were as eternal as rock as well, a permanent fixture on the docks of Louisiana that Will imagined would remain there until the city was swallowed by the water. They had been born here, and so they would die here. 

Bobby Murphy sauntered over from down the road in his ratty flannel, mouth split wide with a smile. “Come in, come in, let’s chat a little, man!” Will was swept up into the sweat and flab of the man, embraced by his shoulders and forcibly dragged into the tourist trap. Hannibal trailed behind them slowly, predatory, almost, a hard glint in his eye. A deep distaste had welled up in his belly at the sight of this man, deepened by the discomfort that was written clearly on Will’s face.

The door whined when they opened it. “Your brother still here?” Will’s voice quavered a little, and his words were sharp and short, too busy remembering the crack of Bobby Murphy’s fist on his nose to attempt at pleasantries. 

“Yeah, yeah. Lee! Get out here, we have a visitor.” 

From a back room behind the counter emerged a man who looked much is Bobby, save for the crooked twist of his nose. He was drying his hands with a towel, which he promptly threw aside when he saw who the shop’s visitor was. “Will Graham! Ooh, man, finally back down here, huh? What brings you here, huh? Business or pleasure, huh?” Lee’s mouth contorted into a nasty sneer when he laid his eyes upon Hannibal, who was pursuing the shelves. “This your honeymoon? Who’s the guy?”

Bobby squished Will more tightly against his body and rotated so that he could get a better look at Hannibal, his arm creeping up from Will’s shoulders to press against his neck. Setting down the jar of alligator teeth he had been admiring, Hannibal extended his hand out for Bobby to shake. “I’m Dr. Hannibal Lecter.”

“Huh. Will Graham’s gone and got himself a German sugar daddy.” The door on the counter thunked down as Lee stepped out to stand beside his brother. 

“We’re consulting with the FBI together,” Will explained.

“S’that what it’s called these days?” The arm around Will’s neck squeezed tighter. Stars flashed in his vision, and he gagged at the putrid smell wafting from Bobby’s armpits, sour and musky. When Will rolled his gaze over to Hannibal, he saw the man stalking through the wooden shelves, his fingers running along the jars and trinkets that filled them. He had the quiet anger of a caged lion. “Did’ya know we went to middle school together, doc? Yep, we had some good, funny times together. Hey, Will Graham, remember all those good times we had together? We were buddies, right? It was a shame you had to run off like you did but, ah, that’s the fishing business.” The brothers sniggered, sharing some private joke. 

“I see you’re still making a living selling shit,” said Will. “This stuff pays the bills?”

“Shit! That _stings_.” Lee feigned a wounded pout. “Hey, Will how’s your dad?”

Silence. Will knew he should not have opened his mouth.

“How’s the old guy, huh? You know what Bobby and I heard? You know what was the hot topic at the last class reunion? Had to have happened a week or for before it….”

Hannibal waited for an explosion. Sweat had begun to bead on Will’s forehead. One of the twins stepped and blocked him from the doctor’s view, and the beast raised its lips in a snarl. He stilled his tensing hand, curious how this would play out, curious for pieces of Will’s life that the photo albums had hinted at, but not revealed.

“Heard he drank himself into his grave.”

Hannibal took a long stride to a shelf of voodoo dolls, not dissimilar to the one the witch had given him long, long ago.

“Heard he took his boat out for a spin one late night after a few whiskeys.” 

From the corner of his eye, he watched Will squirm a little, trying to free himself from Bobby’s crushing grip. Hannibal inhaled deeply to taste the fear in the air; to his surprise, there was something else there, something coming from the shelf, something human, something dead…

“Heard he was so fucking drunk, he capsized his boat and drowned.”

He sniffed again, trying to pinpoint which of the fetishes was the source of the rotten smell. It was the ones toward the front, Hannibal realized, the newer ones. The brothers, who had their backs turned, would not see him swipe one off the shelf and put it in his jacket pocket. 

“I even heard you were there when they pulled his body from the pond! The _pond_! He was a fucking fisherman all of his life, and he drowned in a _pond_!” 

Raucous hyena laughter, a grunt from Will as his struggles intensified, the beautiful musk of distress and fear, and finally, finally Hannibal was intervening, his footsteps clicking on the hardwood, his voice ringing true and firm and like the singing of angel’s to Will’s ears when he said, “Gentlemen, I believe it may be unwise to roughhouse an FBI agent, don’t you?” 

The Murphy’s laughter trickled off, but their bared teeth remained. “Right-o, sir,” Lee said at length, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Just trying to catch up with our good friend, y’know?”

Though Hannibal’s lips remained pleasantly curved, his stare was ice. After a long moment of hesitation, Bobby, unnerved, finally dropped his arm from around Will, and the profiler straightened, a hand fluttering up to rub at the red blotch on his neck. 

“Well,” volunteered the doctor, “We’ll be going now, gentlemen. Do let the police station know if you see anything suspicious happening here. I am sure you’ve seen stories about the bodies being found near the docks, yes?” The brothers stared at him dumbly. Will took the opportunity to forge a path to the door, which Hannibal followed. “Do let them know if you see anything awry.” The door wailed behind them and shut with a slam, cutting off the murmurations of the siblings inside and the last notes of Hannibal’s voice. 

As they walked down the empty street, their silence was no longer easy, no longer light. Will had drawn into himself, his eyes glassy and empty, and Hannibal knew that he would have to reach very deep within the stormy man to pull him back just yet. With this in mind, the man simply ventured: “Would you like to go back to the hotel, Will?” 

There was no hesitation in Will’s reply. “Yes. I would.” 

And so they walked along the water and towards the hotel, and Hannibal admired the gleaming shine of the sun on the water and Will looked at his toes, his jacket pulled tight around him like armor. Hannibal thought of drowning and so did Will, though the former thought of ortolans and alcohol and the latter thought of bloated corpses. They thought of death together, as they had been sent here to do, though they were not thinking of the deaths that Jack Crawford had hired them to. Their work was in the back of Hannibal’s mind, and the man beside him’s thoughts were in the front. 

At great length, Hannibal finally asked, “Would you like to discuss what happened back at the shop?” 

Will replied with a long and hollow laugh. “It was like junior high all over again. I don’t have much else to say about it beyond that. It’s not a big deal. It’s…those guys were always asses. I’m not…” he paused, reaching a hand up to rub at his neck. “I can’t believe everyone heard about what happened to my dad.” 

“Would you care to talk about _that_?”

“No, thank you. I’ve run out of things to say about it. It—it happened a long time ago. People were asking me about it for years.”

“I felt much the same after my own parents passed. It is an exhausting topic that quickly becomes exhausted.”

Will glanced up to cast him a look that Hannibal was surprised to see that it held a little warmth—no more than a spark’s worth, but better than the cold emptiness of his usual stares. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the stolen doll and handed it to Will. “This goes against my manners, but I felt an exception was warranted.”

Now the profiler’s laugh was genuine as he plucked the fetish from Hannibal’s glove. “You _stole_ this?” He turned it over, running a finger along its spine of yarn. 

“Perhaps not a wise decision as a temporary employee of the FBI. It would be easy to conceal something within this, though, and it is something a tourist would buy. I doubt that your high school bullies have the genius to get away with murder, but is it not better to be thorough than sloppy?” He did not tell Will what the doll smelled of. He would know soon enough. 

Will pocketed the doll when they got to the entrance of the hotel. “Luckily for you I’m an agent who’ll turn a blind eye.” He pressed the button to call the elevator and continued, “I guess I’ll take a look at this and then I’ll lay down. We’ll have to hit some more shops before dinner.”

Perhaps, perhaps not. “May I observe?” The elevator dinged.

“If you’d like. Shouldn’t be anything too interesting.” Perhaps, perhaps not. 

“I’m always interested in peeking behind the curtains of the FBI.” Hannibal wanted to see the flicker of victory that washed over Will’s face when he saw what was within the fetish. Though he couldn’t be sure what exactly the doll contained, he had an idea based on the pictures included in the case file. 

He hoped the teeth were still bloody.

“I should thank you for intervening in there,” Will said suddenly as they walked down the hallway and to his room. 

“You did not seem to be in a position to stand up for yourself, trapped as you were by Bobby Murphy.” 

“I appreciate it.” The keycard slid through with a _schlick_ and Will pushed the door to his room open. From his suitcase, Will pulled a smaller bag with the logo of the FBI printed on it in gold ink; from that, he pulled a box of gloves, a small black kit, and a piece of plastic, which he laid on the counter of the kitchenette. He took the fetish from his pocket and laid it on the sheet. 

After snapping on a pair of gloves—Will rolled his eyes at this, and Hannibal lifted his lip in the ghost of a smile—the profiler opened the small tool kit and pulled out a thin knife. He placed the tip at the top of the doll’s sternum and, much like a surgeon would, took a breath before dragging the blade down the length of the grinning trinket. Will’s hand jerked halfway through. “Shit—I hit something hard. Must be a bead or something. Do people normally put things in these?” With a tug, he tore the rest of the doll open. 

The smell of rot immediately rose into the air. Hannibal feigned an expression of disgust and shock, watched Will’s brows knit together, watched him drop the knife and poke open the doll’s gaping chest with the tips of his fingers. From the black kit he pulled a pair of tweezers. Hannibal waited as the silver tips disappeared into the tattered yarn, waited for the moment of confirmation. How did Will handle these grotesque discoveries? With grace? With disgust? Where would his mind race off to? Or would it hunker down, hibernate as he digested his discovery? 

A fingernail was dropped onto the plastic. A strand of something pink joined it; that was what smelled most potently of decay. Two little chips of bone were yanked from the tangles of the yarn and set down. Then, finally, Will Graham held up a red-stained tooth to the light of the room, a deep frown aging his face many years. Rather than rationalizing or gagging or leaping into the headsets of madmen, Will simply breathed out a soft exclamation that was torn between disappointment and anger, not the jab of victory that Hannibal had been anticipating.

“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a roll this week! I can't promise this quick of a turnout for the next chapter, but I do have it (mostly) planned out. As always, thank you for every comment, kudo, bookmark, and view!


	9. A Beast of Bone and Blood, Part I

IX

Will Graham bolted like a horse.

“We have to go back there, right now,” he blabbered as he patted himself down, feeling for the bulge of his phone, his gun, his wallet. His feet skittered across the linoleum and all he could smell was blood, ruby blood, and he heard a voice in his head telling him to _steel himself, that there is death coming_ , though he could not decide whose death it would be. Despair and anticipation, like beer and liquor, filled his gut and made him ill; Will’s hand lighted on the doorknob as the bile crept up his throat and threatened to spill. 

As he rushed out the door, Will told himself that perhaps the Murphys’ were not the killers, perhaps they knew nothing of what stank and rotted in the dolls, perhaps they bought them from someone else, knew nothing of how they were made; perhaps their hands were clean. Will hated them with the simmering passion that comes with childhood grudges, but he could not convince himself that the Murphys, stuck like barnacles to the docks of New Orleans, would drive themselves to kill. The familiarity of it all was too much for the profiler; killers were always distant from him, never faces he might know. The heavy breaths of bloodshed on his neck were a greater burden still. 

…but it would make sense, wouldn’t it? Stuck as they were, glued to these waters, to the endless stream of new faces, the stupid, bland, arrogant, clueless questions of the tourists, their cameras, their strappy sandals, their screaming, travel-high children, doped on disrupted sleep schedules and ice cream…he shook the thought from his head before it stuck. He would allow himself doubt. In the wake of Hobbs, he deserved doubt, and the Murphy brothers did too. 

But then an image arose in his mind of Hiram Murphy, father of the bully brothers, late owner of the Bywater Emporium, sitting in a chair outside of that very same shop, wrapping yarn around the wooden frame of a fetish. A cigarette had always dangled from his lips as he worked, often unlit and merely chewed to a paper pulp of tobacco and disease that the eldest Murphy savored like booze. _Mrs. Murphy always bitching about how he was always losing his lighters, how she was going to spend all of their cash buying Zippos from Winn Dixie’s, haha, yeah, ain’t she just a **nag**!_

Hiram Murphy died of cancer at the age of 67, harsh words stuck to his lips. Hiram Murphy left his business and a piece-of-shit fishing boat to his two sons. Hiram Murphy had always, always been adamant about making his own goods. Wasn’t about to pay anyone for work he could easily force his boys into doing on their weekends. And that was the Southern way, wasn’t it? Sons did what their fathers did. Sons upheld the rigid traditions of their fathers. Sons would make their own wares, just as papa had.

Bobby and Lee had snuck the teeth into the dolls while they sat weaving them on the docks, just like Hiram. 

Presumably, the brothers had butchered their owners as well. The feeling of dread slid home and Will released the doubt as quickly as he had embraced it, and he knew what he would inevitably have to do. The term fixed action pattern pinged in his mind, a morsel remembered from an animal behavior class he had once taken in college. Simple instinct, the professor had droned, an unstoppable chain of events triggered by a single stimulus. For beavers, it’s the maddening trickle of running water. Were killers what triggered Will, then? Was it death that had prompted him to kill Hobbs, that would force him to kill the Murphys? Was this how it all would end every time, without fail, now that Jack had tossed him back into the boxing ring? Beavers would build their dam and Will would pull his trigger and—

It didn’t have to be this way. He was above simple instinct. He would go, he would stall, and Hannibal would call the police, who would send SWAT and—

Hannibal. Through the frenzied buzz of his thoughts he could hear the man trailing behind him, saying his name, catching the door when the profiler burst back out to the streets of New Orleans. Will turned to face him now, his words bursting from his lips like gunfire. “You have to stay here, Hannibal. You don’t have anything to protect yourself with.”

Hannibal blinked, perhaps surprised by the man’s sudden outburst, though his stone face betrayed none of his emotions. Framed as he was by the doorway of the hotel, he looked stoic and lonely, and his words were slow and soft when he said, “I do not feel comfortable sending you there alone.”

“Call the police.” They did not have time for this. “They know our names, they know that we’re here—tell them your name and what’s happening.” They did not have time for this, Hannibal should know—

“You should not go there alone.” A flicker of pain wavered in Hannibal’s voice and it broke Will’s annoyance and rush. It startled both men, and they both acted as if they had not heard it. Will suspected that it was a clinical and detached display of concern for Will as a patient; Hannibal knew that it was the flicker of loneliness breaking through his layer of frost that arose from the thought of losing the one man who might understand him, beast and all. 

“I won’t be alone for long.” There was a weighted pause as they regarded each other, hints of sadness staining their eyes. And then, before Hannibal could argue or rationalize, Will turned away from him, a strange expression twisting his face, and began the somber march to the Murphys’ shop. 

It felt a bit like leaving a pet behind, cooing promises of return to ease their sad and hopeful sounds. Will could understand the doctor’s concern,—he kept reassuring himself that it was professional, not friendly—for the last time he had let Will wander to confront killers on his own, he had left the scene a different man. 

But Will was not worried. Nothing would sting the same way Hobbs had. He would go to the shop and he would do what he had to do and perhaps he and Hannibal would have new nightmares to talk about, or perhaps their conversations would carry on as they had before. He had allowed the Murphys generous doubt for the span of a minute or so, but now conviction in their guilt was weighing so heavily in his stomach that Will wondered if he had swallowed a rock. 

When he reached the end of the street, he peeked over his shoulder to see if Hannibal was still standing there and was disappointed to see that the man was gone. As he rushed to the Murphys’ shop, he waited for the wail of the police siren to shake itself awake and yawn to its incessant din. The silence that lay over the streets made him queasy. Still waters were never a good sign. Still waters eventually frothed, eventually gave way to glittering arcs of teeth and gold-green eyes that shone with reptilian sparks of hunger. Yes, something was lurking. He turned the corner and cast one more glance back to the hotel and hoped that Hannibal’s fingers were busy pressing phone keys. 

In reality, Hannibal’s fingers were flexing inside his kid skin gloves as the man took a back way to the shop. His phone had not been touched. 

And so, when Will Graham arrived at the Murphy’s place and peered through their purple-draped window, there were no policemen on their way, no backup donning their black shells of SWAT armor. When Will Graham entered the Murphy’s shop, stained now with death and memories dredged from the murky bottoms of his mind, he entered the maw of the beast alone. 

His sudden entrance surprised the Murphys, who had their backs to the door and were leaning against the checkout counter, murmuring lowly. They cast Will looks of dull and suspicious confusion, and Bobby’s tongue crept up to rub against the jut of his front teeth as the brothers turned towards the door and straightened themselves against the counter. Both suspected that perhaps Will had come back to make an attempt at revenge, and that soon he would be slinking home after finding that his tongue was not sharp enough to cut the Murphys. When they saw how his hand cupped his waist, saw the leather strap of his gun holster exposed beneath his jacket, realization illuminated their mind and made their gazes sharp. 

It was Lee who spoke first. “Back so soon, Will? Back to defend daddy’s honor?” 

Will had to search for his tongue, and found it leaden when he did. His words were slow, deliberate yet weak; the knees that formed when the loops and lines of the letters merged trembled. “Back as an FBI agent.” 

“Time to put that badge to good use, then. What can we help you with, officer?” Lee stood up straight now, taking his weight off of the counter; his arms folded over his chest, and his fingers flexed and curled, popping invisible triggers, working around the handles of unseen knives. Like cats before a brawl, they were circling. Even if the brothers did not yet know that their jig was up—how could they, thought Will, when it had only all come crashing down within the hour?—surely they would not appreciate an FBI agent poking around their heads and their home, especially if that agent was Will Graham. 

But the brothers knew. At least, they suspected. They had been whispering when Will Graham had come in, scheming, and though they had not had the time to develop a plan, Will Graham had come deliciously outnumbered.

“Is this about the bodies they found washed up on the docks?” chirped Bobby from the counter. 

“Dr. Lecter and I are here investigating the local shops and artists for anything suspicious…” There was a series of soft, hollow thuds outside, which distracted all three men for a moment. “…and we found something of concern at your shop.”

Lee’s eyes snapped back to focus and his frame stiffened at Will’s words; Bobby’s face merely twitched with the ghost of surprise, the type of shock people feign when they are unsure if an astonished inhalation would make them seem more guilty or more human. “When you were poking around here?” the older Murphy asked. “I don’t remember giving you a warrant.” 

_Damn the law and its hurdles._ This was where things would get hairy even if the Murphys’ hands were somehow clean. _Does it matter?_ thought Will, and the gun seemed warmer against his hand somehow, more alive. More soft taps from outside, and he imagined they were gunshots, tearing through Hobbs, tearing through the Murphys….

 _Dead men can’t complain about Fourth Amendment rights._ Oh god, how desperately he wanted to clear his head. It was all turning into a buzzing din now. 

“We picked apart one of the products you sell here and—“

“I didn’t sell him anything!” Bobby jerked up straight, his face red. 

“Stealing, Graham? Wouldn’t be the first time…” Lee again, his tongue so much sharper than his brother’s. 

“ _Shut up!_ ” It was not Will’s anger that silenced the Murphys, but rather the crescendo of a growl from outside. 

“Fucking dogs,” Lee said. 

“Shut up and _listen_ to me, Lee. Ignore the goddamn dogs. There were human remains in one of your dolls.”

The quiet dropped on them with the swift cruelty of a guillotine. Lee dropped back against the counter and stared out the window behind it, shaking his head and clicking his tongue in displeasure. His brother, hunched down next to him with his chin mashed into his hands, looked as if he was about to vomit. 

“It’s really a shame,” Lee said eventually, slowly uncrossing his arms, “That it has to end like this. Think we should toss him in the same pond as his old man, Bobby? I think it’d almost be polite to do so.” Both brothers were staring at him now, bright flecks of morbid intelligence lighting their eyes. With long and deliberate strides they began to advance on Will, leaving the man to strain his ears for the blare of police sirens, the rumble of a car, anything that might herald the arrival of his backup. Years of law enforcement training had ground the desire to run from his legs, but he could still feel how they ached with the latent instinct of flight. Will suspected he would not be able to parlay with the men. 

“No use trying to bluff you, Graham—you were always keen as a birddog. I could stammer, I could splutter, but you know what? I think it will be more fun this way. I think so, don’t you, Bobby?”

The gun crept out of its holster. “You could’ve at least tried to tell me that you got them from someone else, a supplier or something. Make _me_ feel better about the whole thing.”

“Nah.” The chuckle that bubbled up from Lee’s chest was slick and low, a condescending rumble. “What’s the point of telling lies if we could just kill you instead?” 

“The police will come.” Will’s pistol was out now, the butt held tightly between his hands and its muzzle pointed towards the ground, the black void of its single eye staring at Lee’s feet, which were slowly, slowly creeping towards Will.

“I don’t hear anyone coming.” 

“Get back,” Will snarled, and the gun jerked up. Outside, another growl, the rage in it building to a boil. Bobby snapped his neck around to peer outside, but his brother did not take his eyes off the man before him. _You missed an opportunity to pop one in Bobby, sport._

He was killing time with Lee too, listening to his own hourglass run out. The larger man was taking great delight in cornering Will, prowling across the wood floors of his shop and forcing Will to take hesitant steps back with each brazen step he took forward. A _snarl_ rose now from outside, long and sharp, savage enough to make even Lee glance over and Will knew that now was his chance, now was when he was supposed to pull the trigger, wait for that satisfying thud, the soft crack of a bone. Any moment now his fingers would unlock, any moment…

Lee, sensing his hesitation like a shark senses blood in the water, snapped his cold gaze back to the profiler and _lunged_.

Will’s arm was twisted up to the ceiling, the gun dislodged from his hands and stolen by Lee’s quick fingers. He did not think the brother, who had the build of a wrestler, was capable of such swiftness, though he knew he was capable of the strength he was displaying now as he snared both of Will’s wrists, dragging his upright arm down cruelly, and wrenched his arms behind his back. His other arm wrapped up around Will’s ribs so that he could not wiggle his torso in an attempt to break free; Will was left with only his skittering feet to his disposal, but found that the kicks he placed on Lee’s shins did little to weaken the man’s grip. He imagined that, like a snapping turtle, Lee would not let go until thunder or blood. 

“Go on, Bobby, make yourself useful and get me my knife.” The younger Murphy snuck into the back, a slimy smile stretching his face. 

Lee’s breath was hot against his ear as the man hissed, “How should we do this, Graham? Broken nose won’t suffice this time, though I suppose there are other bones to break.” He squeezed his wrists here for emphasis. “You’re not the type we usually go for, but I’m sure you’ve figured that out already. Man, though, I might have to take back what I said about your birddog brain earlier, though. What sort of agent goes to confront suspects on their own? What kind of dumb-fuck agent _are_ you, Graham?”

Will was about to choke out a response when Bobby came from the back room with a skip in his step, a knife glittering in his grip. The man was too busy capering over to assist his brother to notice the streak of black outside the window, and he would not notice until the pane shattered, the glass tinkling down onto the shop counter, and something black and human and massive launched itself through the window, landing with a thump and grabbing the frozen form of Bobby, not giving the man even a moment to scream before its black hands dragged the man down to the floor…the counter hid the struggle, but not the noise of his neck snapping. 

Will had not gotten a good look at the thing when it had tore through the window, swift and sudden as it was, but now it straightened, black antlers rising up from behind the counter, and Will was overwhelmed by a wave of nausea. When the thing hopped over it and onto the floor of the shop, it was hooves that caught it, feathered at their rear, cloven and black. The thing before them was a beast as black as night, its eyes shining with intelligence and cruelty, its face bearing a familiar angularity, a familiar pout. The beast from his dreams had followed him to Louisiana but, try as he might, Will could no longer convince himself that it was made from smoke and sleep, not with how Lee trembled behind him, loosening his grip some and allowing a whimper to slip past his lips.

Will’s own fear could barely register in his mind as he took advantage of Lee’s terror and used it to burst free of his grip, stumbling away from the killer and bravely past the beast of bone, finding temporary safety after rolling beneath the lifting door of the counter. He knew he should have run through the door, that he could’ve escaped the animal and the killer, but Will feared that surviving brother would’ve grabbed him as he turned, dragged him down, pressed his bulk to his neck. Will crawled into the corner and heard a scream, a gargle, and what he imagined was the thud of Lee’s body hitting the floor.

The beast’s hooves ticked against the floor, growing closer. His gun—Lee had taken it, and it was probably shoved into the waist of his pants or into his belt. With nothing to defend himself with, Will resigned to being mauled as a black hand appeared over the countertop, followed by the rest of the beast’s sinuous body. His delayed terror was starting to pool in his gut now, making him nauseous and dizzy and cold and encouraging the little trembles that wracked his hands. He had never seen an animal like this, though he was familiar with the folktales that his grandfather had loved, and he suspected that perhaps one of his countryside-haunting monsters had walked out of the pages of that illustrated collection he had owned. Perhaps, Will prayed, this thing wasn’t real. Perhaps he had killed the Murphys himself, and his tired mind was scrambling to preserve him, conjuring fairytales to gloss over the blood on his hands…

But there had been no blood; even in a hallucinatory haze, he would’ve smelled that. The floor creaked and the thing stepped closer. Will realized that selling himself lies was a futile effort.

And so he waited for pain, but was surprised when the beast did not pounce; it merely crouched on the floor, one hand pressed against the hardwood to steady itself, the other raised. Will was reminded of how his dogs would beg for scraps, one paw raised up against their chest, their heads cocked and hopeful, and the thought of his dogs brought a fresh wave a sorrow flooding through his veins. Tears began to prickle at his eyes as he contemplated the inevitable snuffing of his life and the cruelty of a life too short. At least the thing killed quickly. He forced himself to open his eyes to study the animal after deciding that he would rather know when his final moment was upon him than spend his last seconds in the dark.

It really did look like Hannibal, he thought, with the same chiseled cheekbones found on both man and creature, the same mournful lips, the same expression of quiet power. It was unlike any creature he had seen before, looked more like something out of a horror movie than a nature documentary. It was hard to pin a thought in the frenzy of his frightened mind, but Will Graham caught snippets of musings on monsters, images of cryptids dismissed to be fantasy, and he was left to wonder what else existed in this world that was terrible and vile that man did not know about. The beast stepped closer and his blood ran cold. One of its gnarled hands reached out, and he waited for his thoughts to flat-line…

However, rather than grabbing for Will’s neck, it stretched its hand out slowly, grabbing one of his wrists with slender fingers. Will’s body seized as the creature touched him, but he otherwise remained very still, closing his eyes as his wrist was turned this way and that, examined for cuts and breaks; dark bruises were beginning to mottle the dips and rises of the joint, but it was otherwise unharmed. When the creature traded wrists, Hannibal Lecter’s voice rang out—“I told you, you should not have gone alone.”

It was not _precisely_ Hannibal’s voice; there was a depth to it, the coiling and unfurling layers of whale-song. It had a strange quality as it passed through Will’s head, disorienting him slightly. The words also soothed him some, but he could not explain why. When he opened his eyes, he could see that the creature was smiling gently, its lips pursed to hide its teeth. Its thumb stroked Will’s wrist absentmindedly as if it were trying to work out the tension and fear that fueled the rapid thrum of his pulse; some of his distress was bleeding from him now, pressed out by the nervous confusion mounting in his chest. 

“I am glad that the Murphys did not invest in any surveillance equipment, or else I would have had no choice but to call the police and pray that they were swift. Did you notice that when we first visited here, Will? They do not have any cameras, and the shops on both sides are closed for the season. They were very isolated here.” 

The stagman’s cordiality and his continuing existence rendered Will mute for a moment. When he found his tongue, he could only breathe out a soft, “Dr. Lecter...?”  
“I must have given you quite a scare,” murmured Hannibal, peering down at the constellation of bruises on Will’s arm. “I would shift back now but I would be quite indecent—my clothes are outside the store.”

 _Shift back._ Will’s stomach flipped. A thousand questions crowded on his tongue, but he found that he was only able to bark out: “Explain this.” 

“I will.”

The tears in Will’s eyes were threatening to spill. Hesitantly, he reached one of his hands out to touch Hannibal’s shoulder, gliding his digits across the midnight flesh, tracing the ridge of the basilic vein down his arm. “I feel like I’m going crazy. I feel like I’ve slowly been losing my mind and that everything just spilled out right now. I’m not convinced this is real. I’m—I feel like I’m going to be sick.” 

“Will.”

“Oh my god, you killed them too….”

“Will.” The empath was pulling back into himself mentally and physically, his hand jumping away from Hannibal’s flesh as if it had burned him, his eyes distant and glassy. 

The wendigo shuffled back to give the man his space. He had often daydreamed of this inevitable reveal, and he had foolishly imagined warmth and wonderment from the man before him. But the scent of Will’s distress saturated the air, and Hannibal had not missed how he had crawled away the moment he was free of Lee’s bruising grip. A rumble of melancholy displeasure vibrated in his chest, frightening the cowering profiler, who mistook it for a noise of aggression. He longed to show Will his human flesh, to reassure him that he was not losing his mind and that the beast before him was not a ghost from his nightmares. 

“If there were not two bodies lying here,” Will’s eyes fluttered shut at those words, though he remained silent, “Then I would explain it all now, and I would answer all of your questions. But it is not safe for us to stay here. If I send you away, Will, can I trust you not to flee or report the deaths to the authorities?” Hannibal paused, realizing that this likely would not convince the profiler one way or another. And so he continued: “Aren’t you curious, Will? Surely you have questions. Even in the cold grip of fear, you surely are curious; such is human nature. Can I trust you, Will?” _It would be a shame if I had to kill you._

The younger man’s eyes opened; Hannibal was surprised when the man met his silver gaze, though the emptiness of his stare made him uneasy. Will looked exhausted, resigned, and his voice too was empty when he said, “What choice do I have, Dr. Lecter?”

“You have many choices, though you may not appreciate the outcomes of some. Go, Will. Walk back to the hotel, clear your head, eat a meal. It is alarming when we learn of all the oddities this planet offers us. There is no way to ease one into what they might consider the supernatural.”

A flash of disgust twisted Will’s face into an ugly frown. He stood, slowly shaking his head and looking everywhere but at the monster crouching before him. “How can you act so _normal_ about all of this?” he asked, though the question had the sting of an accusation. 

“What makes you think that this is not normal?” Will stepped around him, not bothering to look back. His steps toward the door were a robotic shuffle that had the stiffness of his nighttime sojourns. It was possible, thought Hannibal as he watched the man’s hand light on the doorknob, that the poor man was in shock. “Remember what I told you, Will—people change their skins all the time.” 

The man did not reply. Deep in his trance, he walked out the door. As Hannibal watched him walk back towards the hotel, he felt the urge to call him back, to lead him back to bed as he had all those nights before, back to dreams where perhaps men with antlers were quotidian. But the bodies of Bobby and Lee were waiting for their disposal, and the beast would not spare time for the tenderness of man, not when the tenderness of meat sang to it so. The jaws of the bayou reached for the brothers; the jaws of the beast did too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Karen, who beta read this for me! And thanks, of course, to all of you lovely readers--every comment, kudo, and click is appreciated!


	10. A Beast of Bone and Blood, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read the notes at the bottom for a quick survey!

X

By the time Hannibal had finished, night had fallen, and the sky above New Orleans was spangled with the winter’s constellations. As he walked back to the hotel, he looked at the shimmering belt of Orion and the forms of his hunting dogs trailing behind him, Canis Major bright and gleaming in the December sky, Canis Minor faint but persistent. Hannibal thought of Will, wondering if the man would still be there when he returned.

He knew that the next few hours—mere minutes, even—would be definitive, the difference between bend and break. Will might still reject him. Will might still try to slay him out of fear. Or, perhaps Will would be curious enough to entertain Hannibal for a conversation. He cast a prayer out into the void, hoping for this outcome, for the bright spark of Will’s mind to overcome base instinct. Should their yearling relationship survive this hurdle, Hannibal knew that there would be much for each of them to gain from it down the road. As he walked, he surveyed the opportunities before him, taking some in the palm of his mind and caressing them fondly, letting them flutter away before he grew too attached. 

He was unsurprised, as the hotel’s lights crew closer, to find that Will’s scent was strong outside the building, a recent marker of his passage. Following his nose, he wandered along the docks, peering down at the black water. Somewhere at the bottom of that blackness were the remains of the Murphys, the bones and scraps that Hannibal had bound, weighted, and discarded after he had eaten his fill. He had not enjoyed the meal, too wrapped around the nausea that had paled Will’s face when he had realized that the Murphys had been felled by his psychiatrist’s hand.

When Hannibal found the man, he was dangling his feet over the side of a jetty, his jacket rucked up around his neck, his shoulders raised like a cat’s hackles to cradle his head. Upon Hannibal’s approach, he said in a monotone, “I figured that you would be able to find me if I wandered off.”

Hannibal considered how best to answer this, wondering if he should tell the man that yes, he could smell his sweat and blood and life, before simply nodding and murmuring a low word of agreement. Will rolled his head in a lazy stretch, feigning nonchalance, and turned his face to Hannibal to ask, “Am I going crazy, Doctor? You told me that I wasn’t during our conversations, but today’s events have not reassured me that you’re telling the truth.” 

The words bit. Will had, apparently, quickly rebuilt the forts in his skull to make up for abandoning them in matters concerning Hannibal Lecter. “No. You are not going crazy.”

“So everything that happened back there…” Will’s brows knit and twitched; with the cold distance in his gaze, the soft part of his lips, Hannibal thought he looked like a saint in rapture. “…really happened?”

“Perhaps. What happened, Will?”

Will’s breath gusted through his lips. The man took a moment to think, narrowing and closing his eyes, opening them again to stare out at the inky lake and its yawning waves. “A great black beast sprung itself from the prison of my subconscious, laid waste to the Murphy brothers, and checked my bones for breaks. _Fretted._ ” He growled the last word. 

“This beast—was he a friend?”

“Oh, it wore the guise of one. Though, I’m not sure if a thing that kills man is any friend of mine, in the end.” _It_. The simple word dug its barb deep into Hannibal’s chest; a flicker of self-righteous anger leapt up to ward the pain it caused away. Will did not know what he had been witness to, he thought. He did not realize that his words dredged up a great anger in Hannibal’s heart, a blackness bred into him by a bloodline that thought itself godly. 

Hannibal did not see his own arrogance as sin; he saw it as a right, something that he had earned the first time he had spilled blood. Something reinforced when Bobby and Lee Murphy had slid down his gullet and into belly. Something that even Will, stubborn, boorish Will, should respect. Hotly, he contested, “Perhaps he only kills certain men. Men who deserve it. Would you rather see the Murphys alive to kill again, Will? To stuff you in a doll?”

A beat of silence. “I would like to see them arrested. I would’ve liked to see the blue and red gleam of police cars, and the Murphys led out in handcuffs.”

“The police would have been too late.” Will hummed his disagreement. So this was the argument that would fell them?, thought Hannibal. The death of the Murphys—not the discovery of black-hooved monsters—would drive Will away from him. His gaze darkened and he seethed, “You should be grateful that I revealed myself and saved you. I could’ve lost a great deal– _you_ could have lost even more.” 

The words tumbled from his mouth, pushed by anger’s momentum, and within them was the admission Will had been prodding for, an answer he could’ve asked for directly, but delighted in yanking from the man; revenge, in his mind, for the terror that had frozen his body earlier. He chewed on Hannibal’s words for a while, sitting in silence with his feet dangling and kicking childishly off of a New Orleans dock, and he savored the bright heat of Hannibal’s frustration, his wounded pride. 

If truly legend had stirred to life and Hannibal’s real skin was as black as crow feathers, well, he supposed it explained a lot about the man, the way he loomed above everyone else, haughty as a fairytale king and yet hiding this flaw with his suave charm. It explained Hannibal’s home décor, the primal tchotchkes that adorned his table. It explained, even, the brilliant checks of his expensive suits, artificial replicas of a moth’s warning colors. Hidden beneath Hannibal’s pride were animal instincts, and Will was delighted that he had drawn them out from the man, ignited the ridiculously male need to defend name, home, and honor. It was spiteful, he knew this, and his silence was more petty still, cold and stagnant as it was. Will glanced at Hannibal’s rigid figure from the corner of his eyes, watched the man lift his hands up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, watched a great exhalation of concession deflate his chest. Watched when Hannibal’s mouth opened up and uncharacteristically clumsy words fell from his lips: “You are handling this…strangely.” 

“Did you have this all thought out? Tell me, then: how am I supposed to handle this, Hannibal? My nightmares just leaked all over my waking life. I feel unstable on a good day; I feel positively insane now.” Just as when he had met him, Hannibal was left wondering how Will’s frame, too thin in the wrists and ribs, was possibly capable of holding so much stormy anger, so much squally fear.

“Are you angry with me, Will, or are you masking your confusion and fear with indignance?” It was like their first meeting all over again, the questions jabbed at each other like rapiers, the anger and scent of sweat curling around them like smoke. Will’s face twisted at Hannibal’s words, and the fire that sprang into his eyes looked ready to ignite the wooden dock. But just when the doctor thought the man was about to either burst or storm off, he deflated, his shoulders drooping down. Though Will did not reply, the shakiness of his breaths told Hannibal all that he needed to know. 

He kneeled down to crouch beside the stricken man and found himself resisting the urge to reach out and rub the base of Will’s neck, as his mother might have done for him when the emotions of a monster had overpowered his little form. The scene, Hannibal realized, was not dissimilar to what had happened hours before, Will trembling beside him, him kneeling a small distance away, and he was grateful that he was at least wearing loafers instead of hooves. “Would you like to walk with me, Will?” he asked, his voice soft now. “We could drive out to the darkness of the wetlands, and I will allow you to see me, and ask your questions, and I promise on the prongs of my father’s horns that no harm will come to you by my hands, be they made of flesh or made of night.” 

The only noise for a minute was the whisper of the water against the dock, a fisherman’s lullaby. Then Will asked, his voice soft and hesitant, “Do you feel any remorse for killing the Murphys?” Upwards his eyes trailed, unable to meet the gaze of the shape-shifter beside him.

Hannibal hesitated, considered lying, and then decided that Will deserved better, would learn the truth eventually. “No,” he conceded, “My kind has different rules from yours.”

“So, if the rules between man and…” he gestured to Hannibal with his hands, unsure of what word to use, wondering if the distinction between _man_ and _him_ stung the doctor, before continuing, “If the rules are different, then what does your oath mean to me?”

“Ah, I don’t know any species that tolerate an oath breaker. Those who can’t hold their words are put to claw and sword. No difference there between beast and man.” Hannibal paused before adding, “Besides, if I had a desire to hurt you I would’ve done so already, when you were cornered against the counter.”

Will considered for a moment. “If I go with you and let you answer my questions, I’ll be forced to accept that this isn’t some prolonged nightmare. If I don’t, then I might be able to live in ignorance, but I’ll always be curious.” 

“I do not think you could live in ignorance forever, Will. That does not seem like your nature.”

“No. It doesn’t.” 

Slowly, Hannibal stood again; as he rose, he extended a gloved hand to the man on the docks, an invitation, an offering. Will’s gaze followed the man as he stood, his sad blue eyes trained on Hannibal’s amber ones as if the psychiatrist’s stony gaze might reveal his intentions. Will did not seem satisfied with what he saw in that empty gaze, but he turned and clasped Hannibal’s hand, pulling himself up gracelessly. As they walked to the car, he felt dwarfed by the man, small beside the weight of his aura, stoic and dark. 

The drive away from the city was silent, the quiet of caution rather than companionship. The lights of the city melted into the dark of the trees, and the men pulled over when the cheeping of frogs became the only sounds that filled the night. They stepped from the car and met at its hood, both pairs of their eyes trailing to the gaping, shadowed maw of the woods. “So,” said Hannibal, “How shall we do this?” 

Will did not hesitate. “I want to see you.” A smile ghosted at Hannibal’s lips; he was proud to see that the man’s trepidation had apparently hardened during the ride to the swampy woods. 

Slowly Hannibal began to strip, removing his gloves and coat, laying them neatly on the hood of the car. Next he worked at the layers of his suit, removing the jacket and vest with ease before moving on to fumble with the buttons of his undershirt. He was intrigued when Will did not look away out of modesty but rather latched his cold stare onto the man, staring at Hannibal’s face as the psychiatrist removed layer after layer. Hannibal’s lips twitched with the idea of a smile when he wrapped his fingers around the elastic of his boxer briefs. 

The other’s gaze hardened with his mirth. His smile collapsing, Hannibal stripped completely, then breathed in deeply and traded his skins. 

Will did not flinch as he watched the antlers rise from Hannibal’s head, nor did he cringe when the man’s bones lengthened and his feet hardened to cloven hooves. The empath’s only reaction was to tilt his head to the right a bit, his gaze remaining glacial as he studied the stag-man before him. Hannibal’s silver eyes rolled up to gaze once against at Orion and his hounds as the other’s eyes traced the planes of his form. 

Will started his exploration of Hannibal’s body at his hooves, black and cloven, admiring the graceful feathering that trimmed the crest of the foot, the fetlock, and trailed upwards only to cease halfway below his knee. He noted the muscle in Hannibal’s thighs, smooth and dark, raised his brow when he peeked between them and saw the furrows that patterned the man’s sheath and testes. Higher then, to the flat plane of Hannibal’s taut stomach, to the branches of his prominent ribs. The beast looked ravenous, Will thought, starved, but he did not say so aloud. Finally the man swept his gaze from shoulder to shoulder, down each arm, to each hand with their five spindly fingers, longer, proportionally, than a man’s and tapered to claws. 

Then Will followed the curve of Hannibal’s neck and gazed upon his heaven-cast face. It had the same stoic cruelty in both forms, the same pouting lips, the same sunken, cold eyes. But here his eyes were full of swimming mercury, full of stars, and he followed their upward turn, looked past the antlers with their sweeping prongs, and gazed at the three stars of Orion’s belt. He thought that Hannibal was beautiful, but he did not say it aloud; the thought frightened him some with how quickly it sprung into his head. Hannibal was beautiful the way a panther was, dangerously so, and Will feared that if he reached out to pet that silky fur, he would be clawed for his trouble. He feared the shapeshifter in the same way one fears the songs of coyotes in their backyard, the haunting falsetto enough to stir one’s pulse yet not enough to force them to turn their ear away. 

He admitted, too, that he did not want to tell the doctor his assessment because he did not want him to revel in his friendliness. Will was not yet ready for niceties after the scare of that afternoon. 

Minutes passed and their silence pulsed, and at great length Hannibal asked, “Would you like to walk or ride?”

The muscles of Will’s face jumped as he was startled from his reverie. “What?” 

Hannibal shrugged and replied, “It would not be any hindrance to me to carry you piggyback if you are tired.”

“I’ll walk.” And walk he did, stomping into the black of the woods for Hannibal to follow. The psychiatrist tilted his head at the coldness in the other’s voice and posture; he longed to scold him for his churlishness, but he feared he might drive the other away. When he followed the man into the woods, he noted that his pistol hung at his side; Will must’ve pulled it from the corpse of Lee Murphy as he had walked out of the shop. _Naughty._ An silent snarl pulled his lip up. 

Will tramped along for a few minutes, roughly pulling aside branches and shrubs and forging a trail in the wet woods with the force of his anger alone. “So, Hannibal,” he eventually said in a clipped tone that the doctor knew too well, “Explain. You said you would, so explain.” 

“Where should I start?”

Will’s only answer was an elegant, almost dainty shrug of his shoulders, and so Hannibal fell quiet for a moment, reached back into the dark vault of his mind, and found himself pulling out strings of his father’s words. His voice rose up behind Will to weave the history and biology of his second skin. 

“Perhaps I should begin by telling you, then, that there is magic in this world, imbibed in the roots of the plants and the blood of the rocks. I am not a mage or a witch; I cannot tell you where it came from. I suppose that it has perhaps existed since the beginnings of this planet, cast down to us with the glittering space-rocks and the seeds of life that the universe threw at us. 

“Magic is so rarely seen these days that it has fallen out of popular memory. Before the rise of science and technology, it was common, embraced; those who learned to wield the energy of the earth were as celebrated and frequented as doctors today. There are still witches and shamans and what-have-you, but they tend to hide in pockets of the planet that time has not discovered, much like my home. Magic is capable of many things, limited only by the talents of those who wield it.”

Hannibal continued, “Magic has granted me the ability to change shapes, from this form to human. It is something I was born with, and therefore I cannot say that I wear one skin with greater ease than the other. Others have taken to calling my kind stag-men, wendigoes, and _raginio tie_ , antlered ones. We do not have a name for ourselves. We are simply us.”

“There are others, then.” Will’s voice sounded detached and distant, the question hesitant. Hannibal longed for a way to drop this new information gently on him, to ease him into the world of beasts and witches, but he knew that there was seldom an easy way to flip one’s world on its head. 

“It is a family affliction. Those who carry the blood of one of my far off ancestors likely carry the gift.”

“Is it a gift or a curse?” Will challenged.

Hannibal thought for a moment. “I do not consider it a curse. The witch who placed the spell on my ancestor thought it one, but we have grown to embrace it as a gift. It is hard to qualify—much like your empathy. Is that a gift or a curse? Either way, it is a part of you, and it is not something you can change. It falls in the grey middle of our black and white moral spectrum.” It pleased Hannibal to see that Will was asking questions, fearful as they were. He knew-- _hoped_ \--that Will would have an easier time digesting the information if he picked what details he wanted, chewed at Hannibal’s mind and memory like a dog with a bone until every question was answered, until he was certain of his safety, of his sanity, of the truth. 

“How many of you are there?” 

“A difficult question to answer.” Their hike had led them to a small pond. Hannibal admired the way the water reflected on the surface as he skimmed through a list of his relatives. “I have seven cousins, most of which are married, some of which have children. I believe all of their husbands and wives also carry the blood—it has been diluted some, you see, carried to enough corners of Europe that we can find husbands and wives distant enough on the family tree. There is my Uncle Robert and his wife, though she is human and they are childless. I have…” He squinted, trying to tune out the din of the chirping frogs that sung for lovers in the water. “There are enough of us. I cannot give you an exact number, for I am somewhat removed from them, and births and deaths sometimes escape me. Less than fifty, perhaps.”

“Ah.” Will too gazed out at the pond, and Hannibal took his moment of stillness to pad over to his side; he had been trailing behind the man all during their walk, giving him his space. But he could feel the glacier wedged between them melting and felt that it was time to approach Will as a friend again. 

“There may be other groups that have tangled with witches, too. Shapeshifting is a common enough curse.”

The younger man began to walk along the bank of the pond, bending occasionally to run his fingers along flat stones. The best of these he picked up and skipped along the surface of the water; the click of the rock as it hopped was soothing percussion against the orchestra of amphibians. Hannibal dropped to all fours and sought out a spot to lay down while the other thought of a new question. Will eyed from warily as he did so, tracking every bend of his joint, every tick of his hooves against the stones as he found a dry spot to settle down in. 

“Why deer?” Will asked at length, frowning as one of the stones arced in the air and sunk immediately. 

“I do not know the answer to that myself. I am not sure whether the witch who cursed us picked this form, or if the magic did itself. Perhaps it was simply the last animal she had seen. Perhaps there is some greater significance to this body.” Hannibal had always been curious about Jadvyga’s choice himself; surely there was some logic to it. He peered down at his hooves. 

“Do all of your relatives look like you do?”

“Generally. Our antlers grow as we grow in age and strength, so there are differences there. Our faces retain many of our human characteristics. Some keep their hair as they shift, some do not. Some have hair covering parts of their body, some do not. The females naturally do not have antlers. They do, however, possess the ears and tails of deer when they wear their non-human skin. But there is a general mold, yes. We might be considered a species in the scientific realm.”

Again, Will merely nodded. Hannibal wished that he would react, even if his reaction was poor. Will’s silence, save for his questions, was killing the doctor. He felt compelled to continue speaking, finding the static quiet unbearable. “This forms grants us different talents, as well. I can lift things twice my weight. My stamina is increased, and I can keep pace with a horse. My voice can be used to both soothe and rattle humans and animals.” _Prey,_ Hannibal though, though he did not say this to Will. He wondered when he would have to tell the man the history of how his family had gained his skin. Cannibalism was not foreign to Will—he remembered how the realization of Hobbs’ taste had weighed on the man, and the thought made his lips twitch with a frown. He hoped that the man would not ask tonight; Hannibal was not certain that the other could handle this revelation just yet.

“That explains why you could kill the Murphys so easily. You’re a predator.” There was a beat of silence that was punctuated by the crunch of stone as Will bent down to pick up another rock. Then, clipped yet sincere, “Sorry.”

Anger once again made Hannibal’s belly warm, but he elected, as he had so many times before, to be patient with him. Will would not accept this new world overnight, and it would take him time to accept Hannibal’s actions, righteous as they were. “I am not ashamed of what I am, and I am not ashamed of what I did today if it means that you are safe. You are worth more than the Murphy brothers.” His voice dropped in volume. “I must confess, I delighted in the chance to reveal myself, Will. I knew that you of all people would understand. You might balk, but you won’t run. You deal with monsters more fearsome than I every day.”

Will turned to face him down, hands on his hips, and his face was twisted into a skeptic frown. “You might say that, but you _are_ the most fearsome monster I have ever seen.”

“On the outside, perhaps.”

“Perhaps.” Will turned back to the water, his head cocking to one side and his fingers drumming a rapid rhythm on his hips. “Did you visit me before, Dr. Lecter? After we first met, for instance. Or was that truly the workings of my overactive imagination?”

“I followed you home after our first session.” Hannibal omitted the fact that he had seen Will once before. He did not want to tell the man that he had been following the scent of meat all night before it finally led him to his home. “I did not feel as if you were safe. It seems my hunch was right, for you crawled out onto your rooftop.” A smile creeped across his lips; when Will turned to face him again, Hannibal was pleased to see it mirrored. 

“You led me back inside.”

“Yes.”

“You tucked me back into bed.”

Hannibal was struck by the intimacy of those words. “Yes.”

“Did you stay the night, too, or am I imagining _that_?” 

He almost felt embarrassed. “I did, yes.”

Will did not mention how he had seen the photobook in Hannibal’s black hands; it frightened him, the thought of the other having such an intimate glance into his life. “You protected me,” he murmured, the thought strange. Will was not used to having a guardian. He had spent years caring for himself, a pack of one, spending hours untangling himself from the nets of danger and licking his own wounds clean…

Hannibal stood, interrupting Will’s train of thought, and walked over to stand behind the pensive man. He had something pinched between two of his fingers—a flat piece of stone, black and slightly reflective. He dropped it into the younger man’s hand. “I did. I would continue doing it. It pleases me to know that you are safe, for your world has few havens, Will. I know that my actions were very…forward. I do not regret them, however.”

Will was ashamed to say that words made him feel strange. Wanted, almost, desired in a bizarre way. The thought of having a warden pleased him immensely. Will did not consider himself a very dependent person; in fact, he prided himself on his solitary nature and his ability to care for himself. But how nice it would be, he thought, how nice it would be to have someone who might care for him, someone who might save him from rooftops and cold feet. Desperately he tried to muster up some of the anger that he had been stoking an hour before; it was foolish to think like this, to drop his caution and hesitance because of words from a monster’s mouth. Damn Hannibal for striking the one note within him that was capable of weakening his knees. Damn Hannibal, damn his slipperiness, his subtle manipulations, his strange and veiled honesty.

Damn his own need for a guardian. 

“You could be my protector.” The words fell dreamy from his lips. He wondered why his anger would not rise from his gut to brand his tongue.

Solemnly, Hannibal regarded the man beside him. “I would protect you from night-terrors and sleep-sojourns. From the monsters made of dream-stuff rather than flesh and blood.” 

“A nightmare to protect me from nightmares,” Will laughed, cradling the flat, black stone in his palm. “I can think of no better guardian. What do you want in return, Hannibal? It’s a lopsided bargain.” 

On the other side of the pond, a long-legged heron waded out into the shallows. Hannibal watched it dip its beak in the water, admiring the elegant curve of its neck. Will watched him from the corner of his eye and found himself taken aback by how enraptured this beast, this man was by the graceful bird. Hannibal’s lips parted and shut with half-started words before he finally said, “Your understanding. That is all I ask for.” 

“Quite a request, Dr. Lecter.”

“Your eyes, then. Your companionship.” _Anything you will give me,_ thought Hannibal, _For this skin is lonely._

Brilliant warmth flooded Hannibal’s chest when Will looked up at him with a steady gaze, his eyes sharp and almost critical, though not unkind; there was almost humor there, a jovial affection that Hannibal wished he could bottle. “Those,” the profiler said, plucking the stone from his palm and flinging it across the glass surface of the pond, “I can give you.” The black rock skipped three times before it landed on the other side of the water, scaring the heron from its hunt. Together, they watched it spread its wings and lift up above the dark treetops. Softly it glided into the arms of the foliage, leaving the men behind to melt into the inky black of their contentment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed your first session of Wendigos 101. I'm so excited for you all to meet Hannibal's family!
> 
> And now, my quick survey, part one: would people enjoy more flashbacks to Hannibal's childhood (we had one earlier in the fic)? I know that a lot of people have a love/hate relationship with flashbacks, so I wanted to see how people reacted before I went ahead and wrote them.
> 
> And part two: are there any questions about the wendigos that you would like answered in chapters 11 and 12? I can tell you that there is a full rehash of what happened with Antonius Lecter and the witch coming soon. It's much less watered down than the story Hannibal's father told ;)
> 
> Thanks in advance to everyone who answers! This is my first foray into extended fiction, so I'm still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work, along with my process. I appreciate all the feedback!


	11. June, 1969

XI.

With the quiet murmur of Louisiana’s waters and the whistle of Will Graham’s sleeping breaths creeping through the thin walls of the hotel, Hannibal closed his eyes and let the cold winter blackness creep over his mind, into his bones. Casting today’s memories out before him like flower petals down a wedding aisle, he walked into the great and vast halls of his memory palace. Down the hall he went, up the stairs, until finally he crept into the rarely touched rooms of his childhood. Will Graham snuffled in the next room over, his exhaustion from their hike finally allowing him peaceful rest, and Hannibal heard a soft snore as he cast open a long shut door and stepped out of the dark of his mind…

…and into the bright and sticky sunniness of a June day, many years ago.

Summer, 1969  
Lecter Castle, Lithuania

It was an idyllic day, the sort of summer afternoon that called cicadas from the cool earth to sing their hissing hymns. A week of rain had made the land fertile; the grass and weeds stretched their necks up to greet the sun much to the dismay of the Lecter’s groundskeepers, three of which were wrestling with a cantankerous lawnmower. Their dresses were stained with streaks of black oil, and one swung a wrench around in her fingers as though she might bludgeon the machine any moment.

Count Lecter and his family could not resist the seductive allure of such a summer day, and so they shed their human skins, shed their clothes, even—it was rare for the beasts to wear any clothing when romping outside, and the fussing servants thought nothing of seeing the naked beasts walk by—and walked out the door, breathing in the musk of the aroused and titillated earth. His son, young Hannibal VIII, had mercifully been granted reprieve from his academic studies to be taught more feral lessons. Count Lecter thought that he was doing the poor tutor a favor by freeing her from her tyrannical charge for the day after he had walked in on the child scaling a bookshelf, shoes discarded and little black hooves peeking beneath the cuffs of his pants. The boy was just shy of his eighth birthday and beginning to realize the potential of his second skin. Though not as wild as his cousins, Hannibal VIII was still a child and could hardly be expected to ignore all the energy coursing through his body. 

The youngest Lecter, little Mischa, had just been roused from a nap and was content to cling to her mother’s back like a baby monkey, doe-like ears twitching in sleepy annoyance at the brightness of the day. The girl was only three years old, a baby in the eyes of the wendigos, something to be coddled and protected. Her father had soothed her irritated little movements with a few swipes of his tongue against the base of her ears and quiet murmurs of later’s promises against her scalp when he had pulled her from her bed. 

When they stepped outside into that brilliant day, the women crowded around the lawnmower raised their hands in greeting, paying little mind to the tails and antlers of the group that passed. Though the band of monsters could not pass for a typical family in appearance, they certainly could in behavior. The younger Hannibal would meander ahead of his parents, only to be called back or, occasionally, raced by his father, who’d drop to his fours and gallop ahead of the boy. Mischa clutched to her mother’s back, dozing, and gently Simonetta hummed to soothe her, one ear trained behind her to listen for sounds of her daughter’s discontentment, the other pricked forward to listen for any commotions from her son. Across the manicured lawns they walked and cantered, down the steps and into the lush and shaded garden. Eventually the organized clutter of the gardens led way to the chaos of the woods, and off of the paths they stepped, and into the shadows they slid. 

It was when Count Hannibal VII was helping his burdened wife over a log that his son tugged on his free hand, peering up at his father’s kind face with a look of great solemnity. “Papa,” Hannibal VIII announced, “My head itches.” 

“Does it now? That just won’t do.” The boy’s father lifted a hand to brush against his skull. Tiny little bumps jutted up on either side, hard bone covered with the stretched and straining skin of his scalp. Count Lecter worried one of his claws against the little protrusion, pleased to see black flakes of dead skin gather on the tip of his nail. “Why don’t you go rub your noggin on that tree there?”

Hannibal VIII obeyed his father’s suggestion without a word, bracing himself before the tree, tipping his head down, and then grinding it vigorously against the gnarled bark. It felt good, he thought, finding a rather prominent knob on the evergreen that he could really dig the itchy spots into. Mischa giggled at her brother, though a yawn interrupted her amusement. “Silly ‘annibal!” 

When the itch was gone, Hannibal VIII stepped away from the tree and was surprised to see a few glistening streaks of blood on the bark. Tentatively he reached up to touch his head; when he pulled his fingers away, blood dotted them as well. “Look at that,” the Count crowed, bending down to lick the bits of blood and skin from his son’s head. The younger Hannibal placed his fingers back on the bumps and felt something as hard as bone beneath his digits. “His antlers are growing in, Simonetta.” 

Gingerly Simonetta touched the growing nubs of her son’s antlers, feeling the ridge the way one might caress the gap where a baby tooth once was. “Look at that. Soon your big brother will look just like your papa with those big old horns on his head, Mischa.”

Excited, Hannibal VIII ground the pads of his fingers against the rounded tip of his growing antlers. “When will they get big, Papa?” 

“O-ho, you have a while, my boy. Not until you go off to finish your studies at the university, I’ll bet.” The boy frowned at his father’s words, displeased with the thought of living with these little nubs for so long. 

“Don’t look so sour! This is a cause for celebration,” the eldest Lecter declared, straightening once again. “We’ll have to send word to the kitchen when we return. In the meantime, however, I elect that we journey down to the river. The day is still young, after all, and the fresh air will do us all good.” 

And so they wandered through the maze of trees, a noisy little procession that irritated the foraging birds. The youngest Lecter was beginning to wake up on her mother’s back, babbling into the skin of Simonetta’s neck and reaching out occasionally to grasp at dangling leaves. Hannibal VIII clambered ahead of them, dropping low to practice prowling through the brush, while his father teased his mother about her fast her babies were growing and how surely they needed more. 

The river near their estate was lazy and quiet, as most of Lithuania’s rivers are. The only visitor to the water besides the Lecters was a long-legged grey heron who lifted its tufted head suspiciously as the wendigos approached the banks of the river. Annoyed with the chatter of the predators, the bird huffed a noise of displeasure and spread its great wings, lifting itself skyward and leaving the family alone in the river. “ _Ardea cinerea_ ,” The Count said to his son, pointing one gnarled finger up to trace the heron’s path. 

While her husband and son scoured the trees for more birds, Simonetta made herself comfortable on the side of the river bank. She pulled her daughter onto her lap and to her breast to ease the little rumbles of her belly. Compared to human children, wendigo children mature and progress more slowly due to their longer lifespan. Though they at a rate comparable to humans, they nurse longer, eating solids after their first year yet nursing until the fourth to build up their superior strength and harder bones. 

Female wendigos go through barren periods while their children are nursing; they do not experience another heat until their milk production ceases. Then, they experience biannual estrus, one of which occurs during the end of spring, the other of which occurs during the fall, coinciding with the male wendigo’s rut. Jadvyga had bound the Lecters to animals both physically and behaviorally when she had placed her curse on them many centuries ago. The witch had some mercy though—she granted them a human-like pregnancy, perhaps to allow them to blend into society. 

Typically, wendigos mate for life; because the shapeshifting lineage harbors rather traditional—perhaps outdated—values, divorce is frowned upon, and even the unhappiest of couples stay together to avoid the stinging tongues of their relatives. Family units are close and devoted, with parents caring for children until they take mates of their own, and children likewise caring for their parents when the aging process begins to accelerate at about 150 years. 

Simonetta Sforza-Lecter was very proud of her family. Her children were sharp as tacks, coy and tactful and easy for even strangers to love. Hannibal VIII had refined his father’s bumbling charm, sharpening it into something primmer, and the boy seemed years beyond his age in both mind and tongue. Mischa, still so young, was shy and quiet, preferring to hide in the shadows of her parents. That suited Simonetta just fine, for the woman knew that a young child’s charm often came from its calm and good-naturedness rather than words, from sweet little kisses pressed to her mother’s skin and soft little murmurs of “’annibal, ‘annibal, ‘annibal” as she and her brother played rather than tact. She was proud of them together, how much they loved one another, how Hannibal doted on his younger sibling. She was proud too of her mate, occasionally awkward, always enthusiastic. She watched him scale a tree now to peer up at a sparrow’s nest, chattering down to his son. Count Hannibal VII appreciated both her cross-stitch creations and the clean kills she made, both her skill as a mother and her skill in bed. Hannibal VII always appreciated her, and never underestimated her. 

When Mischa had had her fill of milk, Simonetta lifted her off of her lap and led her over to the placid river. Sliding in, she turned around to face her apprehensive daughter, coaxing her into the water with gentle words, smiling as the little wendigo dipped her toes in but nothing else. By the time the elder and younger Hannibal were done terrorizing the rookeries of birds, the little girl had been pulled into the river and was clinging to her mother’s chest as her feathered feet kicked clumsily beneath the surface. 

Hannibal VIII was perched on the edge of the river, peering down at the darting shadows in the water, when his father appeared alongside him. For a moment they watched the thin silhouettes of the fish, watching the way they chased one another, the way they curved and danced. 

Count Lecter said, “You can catch them if you’re quick enough, you know. It takes practice, but the little ones are tasty." His silver eyes followed the lithe shadows of the fish, watching as the school swelled and dispersed over and over. Slowly, his hand crept out from its place by his side, and then, suddenly, he lashed it out, snaring one of the fish between his fingers and tossing it back into his mouth, where it met its end with a satisfying crunch. 

“You try,” The older wendigo coaxed, backing up a little so that the shadow of his antlers didn’t loom over the minnows. He watched the boy snake a hand out, hesitate, and then plunge it into the water with a great commotion, the momentum of his attack pulling his body forward, flinging it over the bank and sending it crashing into the river. The Count chuckled as he watched bubbles rise from where his son had fallen in. When Hannibal rose with a dour expression on his face, the man laughed again, reaching a hand into the water to pull the child back onto land. “That’s alright—you can hardly expect a boy to start to grow antlers _and_ learn to catch fish in one day.” 

“I could’ve done it!”

“Is that so? The fish beg to differ. Come now, let’s visit with your sister and mother, they—“

The Present  
New Orleans, Louisiana

_Enough of that._

He did not care for the bitter way that memory tasted, and so he spat it out, flinging himself over to his left side in the bed and pressing his ear to the pillow to drown out the quiet and haunting rhythm of Will Graham’s sleeping breaths in the room next door. Steady, even breaths, he thought, closing his eyes and syncing his own inhalations with Will’s. Steady as the river, steady as time, marching forward and expending itself bit by bit by bit, silt rising from the riverbed, sorrow rising from the seconds. Mischa lived in the seconds and in the river too, and the image of her on that sunny day was sharp in his mind, her lips cracked in a smile, dotted with a speck of white milk, her soft chant of “’annibal, ‘annibal, ‘annibal” drowned out by the grating hiss of the cicadas in the trees above. The white milk was what shone in his mind, for it was the same color as the teacup he had smashed when he sought to bring her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeesh, sorry, this is a little short and dry. Next chapter we're back in the present! Thank you, as always, for reading, commenting, and kudoing. Thank you especially for all of your feedback last chapter! I appreciate all of the questions you guys sent in!
> 
> There might be a bit of a publishing gap between this chapter and the next, as it'll likely be a bit longer than normal. I hope to have it up in a week or two.


	12. A Jar of Blood

XII.

At exactly 7 PM, Hannibal Lecter rapped on the screen door of Will’s house, punctual to the second for their arrangement. The words “fashionably late” did not exist in the doctor’s vocabulary.

They had agreed to have dinner since their only interactions since Louisiana had taken place in Jack’s office. The men told Crawford of their discovery in the fetish, suggesting that perhaps the Murphys had packed up and ran, hence their absence. Will had supplemented the detail of the old fishing boat—surely unregistered, he argued—and the hypothesis seemed to please Jack well enough, for he sent out word for the local law enforcement to watch the waterways. The doctor had been proud of Will as they stood in Jack’s bright office. The younger man was devoted to their secret.

But since their nighttime sojourn, Hannibal and Will had not discussed shape-shifters and magic, and the psychiatrist had to admit that he was disappointed that Will acted as if nothing had changed between them. At night he would think of the dreamy quality the man’s voice had taken when he had suggested Hannibal be his warden, and the ethereal tone would play through his dreams, a soundtrack to his unconscious thoughts. Replacing their Friday session with dinner had been Hannibal’s own selfish suggestion; he hoped that the personal atmosphere would perhaps rekindle some of Will’s affection. He had even offered to bring the meal to Will’s house to even the playing field, so to speak. The woods too, the lovely, empty woods that surrounded the little house, sang a certain song to the shapeshifter, and he wondered if he would be able to coax Will into exploring their sultry depths with him. 

He could hear noise within house, the barking of the dogs and Will’s steps as he picked around his swarming pack. The man looked tired when he pulled the door open, but a smile ghosted his lips when he saw that it was the doctor. “It’s good to see you,” he admitted as he stepped aside to allow Hannibal into the house. 

“Is it?” The dogs sniffed at Hannibal, interested in the warming bag that he had balanced in his hands. They knew better than to bother him; they recognized the scent of the antlered beast beneath his cologne. 

“It is. I feel like we’ve been orbiting around each other all week. No time to talk when the FBI’s picking our skulls clean….”

“Jack was disappointed in us, wasn’t he?” Hannibal was pleased to see that Will had already set the table. He imagined the man rifling through his belongings, pulling out his nicer set of dinnerware, washing dust off of the plates and setting them on his little-used placemats. He wondered if Will would keep them in his cupboards, or if they would be placed back in the box and sent back into storage upstairs. “You’ve wanted to speak with me, then.” 

“I have.” Will pulled a bottle of wine from the brown bag on the counter and rifled through a drawer for a corkscrew. “I’ve been thinking about New Orleans.” 

“About boating with dad?”

“No. About you.” 

Hannibal let that wash over him, chewed on it for a minute like a dog with a bone. “Have you been thinking of what I showed you, Will?” He pulled the Tupperwares from the warmer and placed them on the placemats, parting his lips in a soft breath of satisfaction. 

“Yes, and of our bargain.” _Pop._ Will dropped the cork onto the counter, watching it roll, watching everything but Hannibal’s little smile of pleasure. As the shapeshifter shed his coat and gloves, Will finally allowed his gaze to slide up to meet his, wavering and sheepish. He swallowed visibly, and then ventured, “I was thinking, if we… _go out_ tonight, would you stay here? For the night, I mean. I—I sleep better if there’s someone else here, and I haven’t been sleeping well, and—“

He fell silent abruptly. In the low light of the house, Hannibal could see the color staining his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” Will murmured, cupping the wine bottle in his hand and walking to the table so that he could fill their glasses. “It’s a strange request. Forget it.” 

“Was that not our explicit agreement, Will? If you grant me company in my second skin, I will prevent you from wandering into the Wolftrap cold. That is what we agreed upon as we watched the heron rise over the trees.”

“I just—“ Will’s jaw worked beneath the skin and his fingers popped against the body of the bottle. The gurgle of the wine pouring into the glass was the only sound between them for a moment before Will set the bottle down and pressed his weight against the table. “I’ve been wondering lately if that was a dream.”

“It was not.” Hannibal sat down and motioned for Will to do the same. The man had paled somewhat and his frame had shrunk beneath his scruffy flannel; any eye contact he granted the doctor was quick, fleeting, and decidedly hangdog. “Where do the details start to blur?”

One of Will’s fingers worried at the lid of the container. “Just that night. It’s not that they’re blurred, it’s just…”

“Have you yet to accept the existence of what you might call the supernatural? The existence of things such as me?” The words were spoken softly so that they did not have the harsh grate of accusations. Will nodded, eyes cast downward. “Perhaps tonight things will seem more concrete to you. Does it make you nervous, thinking about things once restricted to children’s tales?”

“I imagine that it would make any other person nervous,” Will replied, tilting his head and rolling his gaze upward in thought, staring at the ceiling as if it might sort his thoughts. “But I realized, as I lay in bed that night, that I have seen things far more terrifying than you. I have donned the skins of humans who have painted the walls of their mind with blood, shucking their humanity, tearing it to pieces. You, you have humanity, but you also have something else. There is a streak of something bestial in you that goes beyond the twist of your antlers.” He paused to wet his lips, but the words were flowing now, stark honesty lubricated with a flash of bravery and insight. “And so I can forgive the death of the Murphys, in retrospect, because I imagine that it was instinct that drove you to kill, an animal desire to protect the pack. In the shop, there was a flash of the beast and not of ravaged humanity. What do I have to fear, then? That one day instinct will prompt you to hurt _me_? I don’t think you would do that. You chose to protect me because you saw an opportunity with my empathy. You think I can understand you, and I probably can. So, Hannibal, I could be nervous; I _should_ be, because I saw how quickly you dispatched the Murphys. But I’m not convinced I have anything to be nervous about. I think that if you hurt me, you’d immediately regret it.” He finished his speech, triumphant, a rare look of celebration shadowing his features.

Hannibal blinked, solemn as an owl. “Your mind is very keen.”

“My mind is not kind.”

“Those words weren’t, perhaps. But they weren’t wrong, and you do not brandish them like a mark of victory.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” A light, mischievous smile played at Will’s lips. Hannibal flit his eyes over the man’s face, delighting in the film of darkness that had crossed it. 

He pinned Will’s eye with his own for a moment and said, “I do not think you are capable of gloating. Your accomplishments and petty victories embarrass you. Do you think, Will, that your blurriness and doubt might stem from a denial that someone would _want_ your company? Seek it out?” The color drained from Will’s face. They watched each other, and when the profiler realized that he did not have a good rebuttal to that, he merely shrugged, flustered. Hannibal smiled warmly and picked up his spoon. “Your food is getting cold.” 

Will’s gaze was quick to leave him. Popping the lid off of the container, he picked up his own spoon and poked it into the meal. Beef, the scent of tomatoes, a hint of spice… “You made me chili?” 

“Working at Quantico this week has given me the pleasure of watching you eat granola bars every day for lunch. You need sustenance, Will.” Hannibal took his own lid off and stirred the contents within. “I thought that chili would be an excellent way to feed you a balanced meal. You’ll be getting protein, fiber, and all of the amino acids you need from that one serving.” 

“You’ve put a lot of thought into what I’m eating.” The sly edge to Will’s voice made Hannibal’s spoon pause its journey to his mouth as the man realized that he _had_ been putting quite a bit of thought into it. Ever since Will had agreed to dinner, the doctor had been digging through his recipe boxes, trying to find something that might agree with Will’s palette (he still remembered his comments from their first dinner, how overwhelmed the man had been by a simple cooked pheasant). Will’s health too had been in the back of his mind; he had made a list of all the foods that he could sneak into the chili to provide the man’s system with a boost. 

Yes, he had put quite a bit of thought into the matter of Will Graham that week. Hannibal did not let this bother him, though it made him feel a bit strange. He simply replied with, “Food is always my primary concern when it comes to my friends.” 

He watched as Will smiled and began to scarf down the food. As they ate, they bantered about the week, and Will divulged pieces of workplace gossip to the doctor. Half of Hannibal’s mind was trained on the conversation, but the other half was focused on his protectiveness of Will Graham. He turned the word “attraction” over and over in his mind, eventually casting it away. It crawled back when he found himself wondering what Will Graham was thinking of in the sidecar of his thoughts. He let it curl up in the shadows of his mind to be analyzed later. 

As Will scraped the last bits of his dinner from the bottom of the container, he ventured hesitantly, “I didn’t expect that New Orleans case to affect me as strongly as it did. The last time I was in danger was when I was a cop—that’s one of the reasons I _quit_. I got into a scrape, and I couldn’t even bring myself to use pepper spray. I just froze up.”

“Was this when you were stabbed?” Will nodded. “You froze up at the Murphy’s, too. I was listening—you had opportunities.”

“I did. I didn’t want to take them. But I could’ve gotten seriously hurt. Shit, I could’ve gotten killed. I don’t want to be another face on an FBI memorial. I know the nature of my work, but…”

Hannibal wiped off his spoon and mulled over Will’s words. Jack did not know that the man had been harassed and then jumped; neither man had included that detail in their stories. The man would blame his skittishness on Hobbs, and surely toss his gifted profiler back into the field. Unless… “Do you think it is time for you to retire from the field, Will? You could still teach, but you’d no longer be chasing monsters.” 

The smile of Will’s face juxtaposed the cold laugh that fell from his lips. “I tried before. Jack called me back.” 

“You are the sharpest tool in his box, the fine china brought out for his most special guests. But I fear that the next time you are in peril, you will be broken. Harmed. Killed.” He lobbed the sharp consonant of the K across the table, emphasizing the cutting quality of it enough to make Will flinch. “You are incapable of defending yourself. What was different with Hobbs?”

“The girl. Her screams. I couldn’t bear it…”

“But you are incapable of doing that again.”

A long and weighted pause. “I hope not. I didn’t like the way killing Hobbs made me feel.”

 _Powerful_. Hannibal could taste the word on his tongue. “That feeling will haunt you, I imagine.”

Will Graham did not have a reply to that; the man simply slid his gaze over to look at his dogs, one hand reaching up to worry at his chin. “Consider it, Will,” Hannibal urged. “Consider retiring. I fear your next case may be your last.” 

They cleaned up from dinner in silence, neither one of them having anything to say. Will’s face looked haunted as he washed the dishes and placed them on the rack to dry; it was difficult to decipher what was going on beneath the flat surface of his despair, though Hannibal watched him closely, orbiting around him at a safe distance. 

When all of the crumbs had been mopped up and the table cleared, Hannibal turned to him and asked nonchalantly, “Would you like to go out, Will? The fresh air will clear your head.” 

“I would like that,” sighed Will. “I would like to talk about that and not...this.” Vaguely he gestured with his hands. 

“Very well.” As Will bundled up in a coat and beanie, Hannibal began to strip his clothes, gingerly placing his suit on the seat of a chair (he had looked to the couch, but grimaced at the thin layer of dog hair.) He stepped outside into the chilly December air, and by the time Will joined him he had already shifted, antlers rising from his head. As the man tucked his scarf into the front of his jacket, Hannibal offered, “Let me carry you this time. I know how to clear your head.” 

Will balked as he was putting on a glove. “I—how?” The man looked rather unsure about the proposition, nervously running his eyes up and down Hannibal’s figure.

“Piggyback,” Hannibal laughed. “Unless you would prefer bridal style.”

Will blushed at that and hurried over to stand behind Hannibal. He placed his hands on the wendigo’s shoulders, running his thumb along the lines of his muscles. The texture of the beast’s skin was strange, more leathery than human skin but still soft and warm to the touch. Bearing his weight down on Hannibal’s shoulders, Will hopped up and felt his legs caught by Hannibal’s hands and settled against the notches of his hips. An awkward pair, they went down steps of the porch and began to cross across the empty, white landscape. When Hannibal dropped slowly to his fours, he turned his face to glance at Will, murmuring, “You’ll want to hold on.”

Will barely had time to wrap his arms around the base of Hannibal’s neck before the stag-man bounded forward, the long stretch of his arms and legs swallowing the ground beneath him. Will could feel the surge of all of Hannibal’s muscles beneath him, the lengthening of his legs, the pumping of his shoulders, and tense and release of his thighs as he leapt over a log and into the barren woods. He found himself holding his breath, and only when they buzzed past a shocked doe did he release it against Hannibal’s neck.

The ride was surprisingly smooth despite the terrain; whenever Will felt himself being jolted, Hannibal would slow down and dart a hand up to steady him. The morbid thoughts of before were torn from his mind and all he could think of were the naked trees blurring past them, the surge of Hannibal’s muscles, the strange sensation of weightlessness that he was experiencing. There was a strange peace in this, in sharing Hannibal’s world with him, in watching it blur by. He snuck a glance at the wendigo’s face and saw his lips stretched wide in a grin, the very tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth. 

Eventually the shapeshifter slowed to an easy lope, searching for a place where they could stop and rest. Will was not sure how long they had been running, but the beast hadn’t broken a sweat and his breaths were slow and even. Tapping his shoulder, he pointed him towards a little break in the trees where a red oak had fallen. 

“Whoa,” Will said as he slid off Hannibal’s back, “You weren’t kidding about that whole ‘keeping pace with a horse’ thing.” 

Hannibal smiled smugly. “I could go faster. Do you feel refreshed?”

“Yes, I do. I’m going to build a fire—do you think you could break some of the branches off of that tree?” Pointing to the felled oak, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and wiggled it for Hannibal to see. 

As the wendigo set to work pulling thicker branches off of the oak to use as fuel, Will walked a little ways away to collect kindling and tinder. When he came back, Hannibal was gouging deep marks into one of the trees with his claws, running over the lines with his fingers until they were deep and prominent. “What are you doing?” 

“Marking my territory.” 

“ _Your_ territory?” 

“In the eyes of other beasts and predators, yes. I, of course, defer to you however,” said Hannibal wryly. 

“Good.” Will bared his teeth in a grin; Hannibal wondered if he recognized the animal intent behind such a display. They built the fire in easy silence, and it wasn’t until they were both basking in its crisp warmth that they spoke again. “Am I still at liberty to ask whatever questions I’d like?” asked Will. 

“Of course.”

“Then I’d like to know why your family was cursed, and how. If Disney movies have any sort of magical authority, that stuff doesn’t just happen randomly.” 

_Aaaah._ Hannibal had known that this conversation would be inevitable. Truth be told, he had been surprised when Will hadn’t brought it up that first night. And now came the uncomfortable decision: to tell Will the truth, or shroud it in omissions? He look at the man now; Will’s hair was tinged with gold from the fire, forming a halo around his face, and his blue eyes reflected the heat in a haunting and beautiful way. Hannibal looked into those blazing eyes, watched the way the flames tangoed with the shadows on his skin. 

If anyone could understand, it was him. Framed in fire like Vulcan with a temper to match, he would understand. 

“It’s a long story,” said Hannibal, a hint of a sigh in his voice.

A response, somehow both sharp and gentle: “We have all night.” 

And they did. And so Hannibal cast his gaze into the flames and began, slow and pedantic:

“There is a woman named Jadvyga who, long ago, preformed old and secret rites and kept some of the earth’s magic for her own. Jadvyga holed herself away for a year to hone her craft and then began to offer simple services for the townsfolk. For a fee, she would fix their ailments, magic boils from their toes, mend the holes in their clothing. Slowly she worked herself up to larger tasks—apparently she once took a calf with two heads and made it into two separate cows. This was in the 14th century, when magic was common and warily accepted as a suitable profession.

“At the same time, my relatives, Antonius and Elisabetta Lecter were residing in my family’s estate. They were newlyweds—Elisabetta had been the daughter of a wealthy merchant who did business along the Mediterranean. They only had eyes for each other at the time, and they paid little attention to the witch, though she was building a name for herself in the village below. Antonius too had a certain aversion to magic, for he was Catholic and strongly supported the movement to Christianize Lithuania. He viewed the practice of magic as an act of the devil. Lucky for Jadvyga, he was too preoccupied enjoying the carnal pleasures of marriage to really give her any thought or try to have her removed from the village. 

“The town sustained itself by farming the tough and stubborn land it called home. The first harvest after the marriage was mediocre at best, a weak haul but nothing of concern yet. The people muttered when they had to give their annual share to the Lecter estate, but they thought that next year would be better. Antonius thought nothing of it. He and Elisabetta were busy touring the coasts of Italy.

“The next harvest was even more pitiful, and the people complained openly when they had to give their share to the Lecters. The people had to slaughter extra livestock that winter. They began to pin cow’s tails to their doors to ward off beggars from the streets and churches, a sign that they had nothing to spare the poor and holy. When Antonius did nothing, Jadvyga tried to make the soil healthy again, but the witch found that she could do little to help the people. She sent word to the Lecter’s about the growing crisis in the town, but she did not receive a response back, and thus began a bitter rivalry between Jadvyga and Antonius. The witch, who saw it as her duty to use her magic to help the people, did not understand why Antonius would not grant them reprieve from the taxes and collections. She did not understand why the wealthy man could not open his own purse to serve the little village that the Lecters had long lorded over. When she heard the squeal of chickens and swine being bled, she wondered if the sound carried up to the stone walls of the estate.

“Two more years this continued until finally the people had nothing to live on. They did not have the barley and rye to feed themselves, and their livestock, save for a handful of laying hens and dairy cows, had all been slaughtered. They did not have money to buy goods from the neighboring towns, and so they ate their porridge and stared at the silhouette of the Lecter estate in the distance. In their dreams, they fantasized about the wealthy inhabitants of that stone castle coming down and tossing their gold into the streets like a maid might toss out corn for the hens. In the waking hours of the day, they chewed their old chicken feed between their teeth and begged the witch to think of a spell to save them. 

“While Elisabetta and Antonius could certainly sustain longer than the poor townspeople, even their own stores began to run out. They began to import everything in, but eventually, after many, many raids along the trade routes by towns also suffering from famine and disease, it became too pricey. They watched their cupboards and coffers grow barren and feared for their future.”

Hannibal paused for a minute to wet his throat. Will stared at him very intently, gaze sharp; the younger man sensed that they were on the precipice of the story, about to begin the long fall downwards. When Hannibal began again, he spoke slower, the words sticking to his teeth like taffy.

“One cold day, a man was poaching on the Lecter’s land, bagging game to sneak home to the village. Apparently this had been going on for the entire winter, but no one at the estate had noticed. Antonius had been out hunting himself. When he saw the poacher, he raised his crossbow, considered his options, and then shot the man dead. As the hunter cooled in the ice, Antonius felt his stomach seize with hunger and admired the way the blood spread cherry-red in the snow.”

Another pause, the moment of hesitation when a ball thrown upwards reaches its peak. Will Graham staring, Will Graham limned by the tongues of fire, Will Graham and his endless pool of horror and empathy.

_If anyone could understand, it’s you._

“…and he dragged the body home and gave it to the chefs. They did not understand. He told them to cook it.”

Will Graham staring, Will Graham limned by the tongues of fire, Will Graham stock-still and silent, his mouth not opening to protest or retch. And so Hannibal continued:

“Antonius told his staff to be silent about what happened, threatening them with violence. He told them not to talk about the meat, especially in front of his wife—she had not known what she had eaten. He told them not to post any warnings about poaching. Let the people keep coming. The deer were gone, but Antonius had found a new prey. Once or twice a month he would go out with his crossbow, silent and cloaked in black. The servants said nothing. He had forbidden them from leaving, and the entire estate was held prisoner to Antonius’ rabid desire to survive this famine. Silently they’d watch his form vanish into the sea of white. Silently they’d regard the red trails he left in the snow.

“In the village below, the people cried and raved to Jadvyga, pleading with her to do something about their vanishing loved ones, about their hungry bellies. Never did they seriously consider marching up to appeal to the Lecters; their pride was too great for that. Jadvyga began to press them to do something, to rise up against my family, but they were too tired. She promised to enchant their weapons with venom and blood, but still they opted to do nothing. Her frustration with Antonius was flaring, peaking, and her speeches to the people grew raving and mad. 

“This continued for the winter. Though the townspeople gave up poaching after two months of causalities, Jadvyga did not stop her campaign to get them to act. Eventually, a small group of them journeyed up to the estate and asked for an audience with the family. They were refused and told not to return. Again the witch suggested a revolt. Again the people sighed and ignored her whispers. 

“One day Elisabetta’s chambermaid was granted leave from the castle to go down to the village to fetch some things for her lady. I am not sure what she heard while she was there, but she gathered enough information to paint a picture of the unrest to Antonius when she returned. He was outraged by the witch’s cries for a revolt, and so he sent her a request to join him at dinner, where he planned to arrest her. He told the kitchen to prepare a feast to celebrate the end of the witch. 

“Some of the other servants heard of this plan and began scheming themselves. Under the cover of darkness, one of them slipped away from the estate to alert the witch of her arrest and inevitable execution. They told her of how Antonius was slaughtering the poachers and feeding them to his family and workers. She sent the servant to the next village and, having finally been given her audience with them, began to think of a way to punish the Lecters for their crimes. If they could not act like humans, she decided, then they should not be called humans.

“I am not sure what happened in the week between the servant’s warning and the dinner with Antonius. The witch has never told us, and I doubt she ever will. Regardless, she concocted a spell to punish Antonius and brought the ingredients with her to the dinner, hiding the jaw of a stag and a jar of her own blood in the many layers of her clothing. 

“When Jadvyga arrived at the Lecter estate that night, she was not offered a tour of the castle, nor a tea to warm her frozen bones. The woman was led straight to the dining room, where Antonius waited. When she rounded the corner and saw the table, her stomach seized in disgust and hunger. Piled high on china plates were all sorts of delicacies—whole pheasants, the head of a boar, fruits painted with the colors of a bleeding sunset, fresh milks and juices, decadent sweets and pastries. And at the head of the table sat the master of the Lecter household, his face twisted in a vile sneer, his black heart thrumming in his veins. Jadvyga asked where he could have possibly gotten all of this food from. He replied that he had had to pay a substantial price for it, but seeing the expression of horror on her face had been worth it.

“Jadvyga did not sit at that table; she did not touch anything on it. She simply asked Antonius why he had not helped the suffering people. He retorted with a snort, and said it was not his duty—he was not their keeper.

“You are greedy, she told him, her voice full of the winter’s ice. She detailed his sins, from letting his people starve to cannibalism. He pretended not to hear, and motioned for some of the staff to remove her. His attention was only returned when she took the jar of blood from her wraps and smashed it upon his bounty, staining all that glorious food with red bits of glass. With the jaw of the deer cradled against her breast, she pulled black words from the back of her throat, placing a curse on my family’s blood, and then it was no longer Antonius Lecter staggering away from that table, but a beast of bone and blood, a beast with black antlers.

“The servants fled, and Jadvyga too, after she gloated for a moment. Antonius staggered around his dining room, devouring the blood soaked bounty before him yet unable to ease the snarling of his stomach. His wife peeked her head in, yet fled when she beheld the monstrosity at the table. It took one of the servants, a nanny who had endured years of squabbling children and certainly was not fazed by an antlered beast, to knock him unconscious with a pan. When he woke, he was bound to a tree outside. Warily the servants passed him, their eyes holding no love for their master. It was only when Antonius discovered that he could shift between that body and his human body that they accepted him back into the house. 

“Things were not the same after that. It took many months for Antonius to control his new powers and outbursts of anger would often pull the beast from him. Elisabetta, who had not been cursed, suffered in the silent way that women do, and she bore him many children, all of whom shared their father’s affliction. She and Jadvyga developed a strange friendship, as the witch was often at their house after the incident to help Antonius and the children. The servants slowly trickled away to serve other families until eventually it became the task of the pan-wielding nanny to recruit girls from the area, some of whom were escaping marriages, others the nunnery. Eventually Antonius died and the generations turned over and over until the present day. There is more history between then and now, but your fire is growing dim and I fear I may be putting you to sleep, Will Graham.” 

Will did indeed have his eyes closed, but the man was simply meditating, connecting the threads of Hannibal’s story within his mind. He could not say it surprised him; cannibals and curses, blood and bone, they seemed so quotidian when one looked through the pages of fairy tales. His stomach protested dimly, but it could not muster up any real revulsion at the shapeshifter’s story. 

Hannibal watched him very closely. The fire popped, and Will opened his eyes. 

“You left out an important detail, Hannibal,” he said as he rose to poke at the flames.

“Did I?”

“I wonder…” Will’s tongue snaked out to wet his lips. “I wonder if your ancestors _tastes_ have passed down through blood too. You said he could not sate himself at the table; the pork and fowl would not fill his stomach. Did Jadvyga curse him to a particular appetite too?”

A crackle as Will dropped a handful of sticks into the fire. Greedily the red tongues lapped them up, and smoke reached up to caress their benefactor’s face. Hannibal felt a surge of pride for the man for a moment; he was so bright, so perceptive. Will Graham had been picking his words clean all during his story. Hannibal was not afraid to deliver him the truth. “Yes.”

“And so…”

“And so?” He desperately wanted to hear Will say it.

“You’re a cannibal as well, then.” 

A beat of silence. Will Graham staring, Will Graham limned by the tongues of fire, Will Graham shrouded in a veil of smoke. 

“Yes.” 

A symphony rose to a crescendo in Hannibal’s mind. They were on the edge of ripe or ruin, teetering on the precipice of their downfall. Will Graham could reject him, disgusted; he would hardly even blame him for this reaction, because why _wouldn’t_ he be disgusted? Hannibal felt a strange and foreign flicker of fear tickle his throat. Will Graham was turning to him now, illuminated by the savage fire, and his roving eyes were the blue of deep waters, and the pianos were reaching a frenzied cadence now, the woodwinds a riotous cacophony, and—

“What did you feed me tonight, Hannibal?”

The symphony fell flat and silent. The fire swallowed another log. Dreamlike, Will’s voice rose detached from its person; it took Hannibal a moment to realize that he had spoken, but when his mind caught up, he replied: 

“Beef.”

“Beef?”

“Yes.” 

Silence. Silence. Stretching, yawning silence, save for the hiss of the fire. Movement now from Will, who shifted his feet and crunched the snow beneath his boots. The man’s lips fluttered and shut with swallowed words, until finally he merely shrugged. “I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised by your story, Hannibal. It’s almost…god, it’s almost _mundane_. Classic fairytale, isn’t it? Curses, witches, monsters who eat men. ” 

Hannibal did not think it was mundane, but he humored the man. “I suppose so. I was expecting it to upset you.” 

Will thought for a moment, walking back to his seat near Hannibal. “The thought makes me deeply uncomfortable, Hannibal, but it doesn’t repulse me—yet. I’m still digesting the information. It’s—it would have disgusted me if it caught me off guard. Maybe tonight, in the inky blackness of my dreams, all of the latent repulsion that is certainly brewing in my gut will bubble up.” He tilted his head. “But bad dreams are what I have you for. There will be time for disgust later, when I am sitting at your table once again. I will pick at the food you give me, spread it from the bone, and I will not eat it.”

Hannibal hummed a note of dissatisfaction. “So I have driven you away from my table?”

“I didn’t say that.” Will’s gaze cut up sharply. “You will not feed me human meat, Hannibal, under any circumstances. If I dine with you, I will watch you prepare whatever it is that you’re making. You will save your receipts.”

“And in return?”

“ _And in return_?” Will could not help the harsh bark of laughter that escaped his lips. “In return, Hannibal, I tolerate this little _quirk_ of yours. I blame a witch for making you a cannibal and not you for being one. I build a wall around repulsion in my mind and hope it doesn’t leak. _In return_ I keep your secret. In return, you aren’t arrested after admitting cannibalism to an FBI agent.” Trepidation made his tone grating.

Hannibal sat there silently, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh, don’t lecture me on rudeness, Dr. Lecter,” said Will, standing to stomp out the fire. “You can wag your finger any other time, but if you do it now, I fear I’ll snap.”

A low growl bubbled in the wendigo’s chest. Will merely shook his head, scattering the last sparks across the snow with his feet. The magic of the night was lost.

In silence they walked back, side by side and not belly to back. Though the walk took an hour like this, they did not speak until the lights of Will’s house began to filter through the trees. Together they brooded, two self-pitying creatures who tried to rein in the anger threatening to charge at the other, two dreamers weaving a tapestry of an alternate reality. There is overlap in those threads, in the desperate desire for a better outcome, in the pink thread of attraction and fascination that they begrudgingly weaved into the textile. Hannibal longed for worship and stitched that whim in purple. Will longed for a world where men did not eat one another, and he stitched that in red. Together they experienced a sharp snap of growing pains in their relationship, a brilliant ache that flooded their brains. 

They realized, too, that they were at an impasse. Should the man anger the beast, the beast would surely eat him. Should the beast anger the man, then the man would surely lock him away. Both realized that they had tied themselves together at the waist. Both strained at that rope now. 

When the scent of dog flooded his nose, Hannibal turned to Will and asked, “Shall I collect my clothes and leave?”

Will shook his head. “No. I need you here tonight more than ever. The cement hasn’t quite dried on those mental forts.”

A wry smile from Hannibal as Will held the door open for the wendigo, smirking as he watched the beast twist and turn to get his antlers through the frame. Will regarded him coolly as he stood in the house, amused by the contrast of hooves on carpet and by the way Hannibal’s antlers threatened to scrape against the ceiling. “Are you going to shift back?”

“No.” Hannibal had endured many barbs that night and found that he could not resist sticking one into his companion. “Because, if I sleep here in my human body, then you will wake to find a man sleeping on your couch, and you will panic at the intimacy. It is better if I stay as I am.” 

Will found that he had nothing to say to that.

With exhaustion weighing heavily on their bodies and minds, the two prepared for sleep in silence. By the time Hannibal had arranged a nest of blankets, Will had changed and was beginning to lay down a layer of towels on his bed. The wendigo watched the ritual knowingly; when Will’s gaze slid over to meet his, his mercury depths were filled with a cool judgement. 

Tomorrow they would discuss the FBI again. Tomorrow they would bicker and bite again, and resentment as deep as rivers would open a rift between them. They would wallow in their wounded prides until loneliness yawned in their chests again and then, encouraged by their mutual dependence, they would mend their cuts with soft admissions and stories of times passed. As Will pulled his sheet over his body, Hannibal wondered if they were doomed to a cycle of destruction and reparation. They would tear each other apart only to exchange tenderness afterwards. It was the cycle of storms, thought Hannibal as Will turned to face him. Sweet rains and sweeter thunder. 

“Did you eat the Murphys?” asked Will softly, his eyes narrowing from his tiredness. 

“Sleep,” said Hannibal. Will exhaled gustily, and the beast wondered if the forts of his skull would hold through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, there they go again, being nice and then tearing each other to bits. I hope you liked the non-filtered version of the Lecter's history! 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for all of your comments, kudos, bookmarks, and critiques. Your kind words are always a nice thing to wake up to! 
> 
> My tumblr is pigwingstoheaven. Feel free to send me requests there!


	13. Cottontail

XIII.

What sticky, bloody dreams they had.

While Will Graham dreamt of being torn apart and devoured bit by bit by Hannibal’s greedy mouth, the wendigo dreamt of lathing his tongue over the man’s neck and tasting the flutter of his pulse. Blood and sweat mingled in equal volumes in their dreams, and both fantasies shared a mutual heat that radiated from leaking veins and flexing bodies. 

When Will woke, Hannibal was gone, his nest of blankets long abandoned. With a stretch he rose from his bed, grimacing as he felt the sticky tack of sweat clinging to his back. He reached behind himself and slid two fingers up the ridge of his spine. When he pulled them away he saw how they glistened with perspiration, and immediately last night’s nightmares unfurled in his mind and his nose flooded with the metallic scent of phantom blood, his ears with the crack of bone. 

Will found it embarrassing how Hannibal invaded his dreams with greater and greater frequency since New Orleans; the shapeshifter crept through his nights in his more bestial form, and often he was painted in blood, a fiend to pace his nightmares and rattle the bars of his sanity. A few other images of the doctor were buried in the recesses of Will’s mind as well, images filled with heat and noise and naked flesh, images that, when remembered, were squashed as swiftly as ants in the kitchen. He could not control where his lonely, frenzied mind wandered at night, but the thoughts filled him with shame, molten and insidious. 

Blearily he came to his senses, one hand rubbing the sleep from his eyes. From the kitchen came the clinking of dishes and a loud hiss as something was added to heat. Will worried his lip between his teeth. He knew he would have to steel himself before seeing the man again, shoo the unconscious thoughts of last night away, and so he took his time padding over to his dresser, pulling out a new shirt and futzing with the sparse collection of items he had strewn across the top. He thought of their discussion last night but tried not to dwell on it, for he still was unsure of how he was supposed to have responded to Hannibal’s admission of cannibalism; it had struck his chest with the dull thud of an arrow hitting its target, both jarring and muted. Perhaps if he was not gifted with an imagination that had already painted Hannibal’s history in vivid detail, it would have shocked and disgusted him. But he had foreseen it; Will was no stranger to the dark stories from the Schwarzwald and beyond. His mind had concocted much worse images than that of Hannibal feasting on the body of a man. 

Perhaps if he was not so lonely, he would have been able to toss Hannibal away. Perhaps it would have been easier to muster up disgust if this friendship did not stabilize him (and Will admitted that it did, though he did not understand why). Perhaps if he did not feel his chest deflate with relief with each easy silence they let wash over them, he could have rejected the monster for his confession. Perhaps if he had not felt so safe when his arms were wrapped around his neck, perhaps if he did not enjoy understanding and being understood by another, perhaps, perhaps…

He shut the dresser drawer with an unnecessary slam. Frustration breathed fire into his throat and he was struck with the overwhelming urge to cry. Damn the man, damn this topsy-turvy world where apparently magic was real and practiced every day, damn every “perhaps” that danced across his mind. Damn his own loneliness most of all. Will desperately wished he could fill the hole that had gaped in his chest all of these years with something other than Hannibal; he wished he could forget about the man and not be bothered by struggles of morality and guilt. But the heron rose up in his mind, lifting above the Louisiana trees, and Hannibal’s voice rose with it, soft and sweet: _I would protect you from night-terrors and sleep-sojourns. From the monsters made of dream-stuff rather than flesh and blood._ And oh, those words made him weak. He thought of how smoothly the word “protector” fell from Hannibal’s tongue and how it made him want to kiss the man. The night of the revelation, after they had settled into their respective hotel rooms, Will had held that feeling of safety close to his chest, let it curl up in the curve of his body and keep him warm until the next day. He would not admit it to himself, but that night had cemented a blind, almost reverent trust in the shapeshifter that would only be torn if the beast chose to tear it. He had often wondered what Hannibal had thought about that night, wondered if the man was waiting, with the slick patience of a predator, to lash out, or if he truly intended to fulfill the mantle of a protector. He contemplated this train of thought, turning it over in his head before eventually tossing it away. There was no point in dwelling on something he wouldn’t know the answer too until the wendigo was sinking his teeth into his neck. 

One of the dogs barked in the kitchen. Will shut his eyes, breathing in deeply, and went to join Hannibal, chasing the nightmares, fantasies, and musings from his skull on the way there.

Hannibal was cooking at the range, dressed in his pants and undershirt but forgoing his vest and jacket. Will noted that the doctor’s hair was loose, somewhat ruffled even; he was not sure where that observation came from and squashed it quickly, afraid of its implications. _Intimate._ He lingered in the doorway, thinking about Hannibal’s barb last night.

“Will Graham,” Hannibal turned to face him, brandishing a rubber spatula in one hand. “I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of making breakfast. You were sleeping quite soundly and I didn’t want to wake you. Here is your ‘receipt’, as you requested; it was the best I could do.” 

“Huh?” Will replied inelegantly, distracted as he was by the sight of another in his kitchen this early. A soft brown pelt was raised for him to see; the man frowned when he saw the rosy insides of two long ears and the white sweep of a fluffy tail. “Can’t think of the last time I’ve had rabbit.”

Something snapped in the pan, prompting Hannibal to turn back around to tend to it. “You have truly challenged me, I must admit. I have never met someone as ill-stocked with spices as you are.” With a flourish, Hannibal scooped the omelet from the pan, chopped it in two, and slid it onto a pair of Will’s chipped ceramic plates. “Do you ever cook for yourself, Will?”

“Rarely,” he admitted, accepting the plate Hannibal offered him. 

“I figured as much. I rifled through all of your drawers in search of supplies—my apologies. You don’t feed yourself well, Will. Eating junk is as bad for the mind as it is for the body.” Hannibal picked up his own plate and grabbed the coffee pot, leading his sleepy companion to the table. “I made do with what you had. I even used that bag of shredded cheese in the fridge. I am sorely tempted to take your grocery shopping to replenish and… _refurbish_ your pantry, but that will have to wait until another day.”

Will merely blinked at that, a piece of omelet halfway to his mouth. It was almost as if their arguments from last night had dissolved into nothingness; there was no trace of ice in Hannibal’s voice, and, just like last night at dinner, he seemed intent on providing for the profiler. The intimacy of their night together, regardless of its innocence, didn’t seem to faze the man either. How could he be so casual, so frank, after he had spent the night curled up on Will’s floor, his hooves twitching in his sleep? How could he start the morning with kindness when just last night they had shot sharp and bitter arrows at one another? He knew that Hannibal was lonely too, but still the man puzzled him with his strange and slick suave. “Everything just slides off of you, doesn’t it?” Will ventured, his brows knitting together a fraction. 

“What do you mean?” Will could tell that Hannibal’s confusion was feigned.

“We spent last night bickering.” 

“Did we?” Hannibal tilted his head. “And here I thought that I had spent the night divulging family secrets.” 

The man’s blasé attitude was infuriating, chafing at Will’s nerves. “I wasn’t the only one who was annoyed last night, Hannibal. Don’t try to… _mm_.” Will shoved a piece of the omelet into his mouth to stopper the unkind words that nearly tumbled from his lips. 

Hannibal seemed to think for a minute, setting his fork down on his plate. “I suppose we could start the day with talks of annoyances and forgiveness, Will, if that is what you’d prefer,” he said at length, steepling his fingers and ignoring the way the younger man’s eyes narrowed. “But I would prefer to start it with truth. I do not always appreciate the way you speak to me. Your tongue is your defense, tried and true, and I had hoped that you would learn to relax around me. I think you have, somewhat; you lowered your defenses in my office, that very first time, and though you have been cautious since Louisiana, you still hold yourself open to me. I wonder if it’s when you realized that you have bared yourself that you sharpen your words again. Fear made your mouth rough that night in New Orleans, but what was it that turned you sour last night, Will? It wasn’t fear of me, at least. You told me that my family history was _mundane_ –nothing there to shock you. I wonder, though, if you are afraid of our relationship. Through the cruel hands of violence and fate, we have been pulled closely together in a short expanse of time. Conjoined.” _Have you ever had a friend, Will?_

Will set his silverware down. He found his appetite fading, every cell in his body focused on Hannibal’s words. “We have let each other into the shadows of our lives without considering the consequences of our actions.”

The words hung between them, rising like soap bubbles. Neither thought of loneliness, though it howled within them. There were other reasons why they clung to each other. Reasons such as…such as…

Hannibal’s voice was a hissing whisper. “Yes.” For a long moment they regarded each other, gazes sullen and tired. Then Hannibal continued, “Growing pains. The scream and stretch of bone and muscle. Our relationship is growing, and rapidly. It aches. You are not alone in your discomfort; we threw ourselves so quickly into intimacy without first preparing for the changes it would bring, the brilliant discoveries and harsh revelations.”

“Intimacy,” said Will, his eyes narrowing in wary confusion.

“Any relationship where secrets are shared is intimate, Will. The word so often brings to mind the coiling and shaking expanse of bodies, but sex is not intimacy. Closeness is intimacy. We are close, Will, whether we like it or not; we humans do not let those who know our secrets go so easy. We have grafted ourselves together without considering how our plant might grow. It is easy to forgive your trespasses, the cut of your words, when they are simply the cries and pains of something that is growing, evolving.”

The doctor’s confidence was maddening and Will found himself wanting to deny the truth of his words. But here were the growing pains that Hannibal spoke of; here was the ache. Will knew that he would have to admit that the doctor understood him well and could pick apart his motives. And Hannibal…Hannibal would have to admit that Will understood him as well, could project his bestial mind into his own as if he were wearing the doctor’s second skin. Hannibal would have to admit that he who saw himself above all else might have an equal. Will comforted himself with the wendigo’s unspoken aches, but could not decide if his relief was born from sadism or empathy. “I suppose I have to forgive you as well, then.”

“If you’d like.”

Will picked up his fork again, poking at the pieces of egg. He avoided the other’s eyes as he said, “We carry the tension of an arranged marriage. A grafted relationship, as you said, little natural about it.”

Hannibal smiled very wryly at that. “We will have to make it work or else we will spend our lives at each other’s throats, trying to strangle the traces of our secrets from each other to preserve our own sanity.” 

“We will have to wish for the best,” said Will.

“Strive for the best,” added the shapeshifter. 

“And it will work out one way or another,” Will concluded. He was not a man of optimism and he did not believe the words; he found they made him feel worse, but he didn’t let it show in his face. 

Hannibal, too, found himself burdened with a strange sorrow as he thought of these words and of his uncle’s letter, sitting at home on his bedside table. How cruel that their budding relationship would be put on hold as he paid a visit to his family; how cruel that Will must endure the weeks of separation. He wondered if they would resort back to pointed comments and petty irritation when he returned. Could they endure knowing that their secrets and insecurities were stretched across oceans and islands? 

Will’s voice interrupted his train of thought. “Do you really blame the Murphys for this, though? ’Through the cruel hands of violence and fate’…I don’t buy it, Hannibal. I think you would have revealed yourself eventually. It’s like I said last night—you saw an opportunity with my empathy. You are a beast alone in the world, separated from your kin, but what if you found someone you could project yourself onto? Someone you could share yourself with, knowing that their mind would scramble to understand you?”

“I admit that the thought tempted me, though I had not planned on revealing myself, no. I am getting a sense of déjà vu, Will Graham. Again, we are tossing words at each other like hot coals and, again, your food is getting cold. _Eat._ ” 

Will, though he did not fully believe Hannibal, said nothing, merely casting the man an inquisitive look as he cut back into his omelet. The doctor was content to watch Will eat with the sternness of a parent written across his features. He stifled a yawn, and Will was pleased to see that he was not a morning person. 

Hannibal carded a hand through his disheveled locks, trying to flatten the curling ruff at his nape. “You slept quite soundly last night. You tossed and turned occasionally, but not once did I have to bring you back to bed. Does this mean that your forts held, Will?” 

Will shrugged. The piece of rabbit in his mouth was suddenly not so appealing. “It’s like I said last night: I can tolerate, but I cannot condone. I don’t have much of a desire to dissect it, Hannibal. You’re a cannibal because your curse made you that way.” His appetite was gone suddenly; Hannibal’s brow raised when Will crossed his silverware on his plate, but he said nothing. What Will’s mouth would not admit, his body would betray with its rigidity—he was deeply uncomfortable with the notion of cannibalism, regardless of what his nonchalant words would suggest. 

“I am not like Garrett Jacob Hobbs, eating young women for my pleasure.” A half-truth, thought Hannibal. He enjoyed the hunt, he enjoyed preparing the organs and meat for consumption, but surely a lion did too when he hunted the zebra. He was nothing more than a predator. 

“No,” Will retorted curtly, “I imagine that you do it for your survival.” The profiler cast his gaze to the floor, finding it hard to meet the other’s probing stare. He wanted this conversation to be over; it was starting to cause his neurons to fire, the phantom prickles of pain reminding him of being consumed by Hannibal’s sharp teeth in his dreams. He could tell that the doctor wanted to press the issue, but Hannibal merely stood to collect Will’s plate, his stony face masking his disappointment. 

As they washed the dishes, Hannibal wondered if he would be able to broach the topic of the FBI without rattling the man too much. He was surprised when Will brought it up himself as he tickled his fingers against the bubbles in the sink. 

“I’ve been thinking about what you said at dinner last night,” murmured Will as he lifted a dollop of the suds and rubbed his fingers together. “It really bothered me. New Orleans affected me a lot more than I thought it would.” A shadow crossed his face; Hannibal swore he could see the glisten of tears in Will’s eyes and found himself torn between reveling in the other’s pain and placing a hand on his shoulder, as though the pressure of his fingers but squeeze out his sorrow. “You’re right,” Will admitted softly. “One of these cases might be my last. I don’t—“ His voice cracked a little, catching in his throat, and he fell silent, embarrassed. With slow circles, Hannibal dried a plate and waited for the man to regain his courage again.

It took Will a moment of silence and a deep sigh to finally finish: “I don’t think I’m fit for the field right now.” 

Warmth blossomed in Hannibal’s chest. “I’m proud of you,” he purred, though the words caused more pain to flicker across Will’s face. Hannibal longed to say many other things, say how he knew this admission was difficult for him, say that he knew it would be for the best, say how it warmed him that Will trusted his judgement, but none of the words felt right as they brewed on his tongue and so he merely regarded the man in silence. His affection bubbled up to his lips, his eyes, but the younger man offered him no warmth in return, just his doleful, empty stare, a look that radiated his shameful sense of failure. 

Hannibal did not mention how soon he would have to leave the man to his own devices, to the beasts of his dreams and the visions of the daytime. He could not bring himself to wrench this cruel knife into Will’s gut just yet, not when the man looked as if he were perched on the cusp of ruin after admitting what he saw as a weakness. With a crocodile’s smile Hannibal regarded him, thoughts of abandonment chased away by wonderings about how Will looked when he cried, if he blubbered or whimpered, if his tears gushed or trickled. He could eat the man’s sorrow with a spoon, it looked so delicious on his face. 

Hannibal did not think of Robert Lecter, though the older wendigo thought of him as he sat tucked away in his castle. Robert’s patience was wearing thin; it was not like Hannibal not to reply to a letter, nor was it like him to be the last to arrive at a party. Perhaps another correspondence was needed. Or, perhaps he’d have to send one of his cousins to drag him back to Europe by the prongs of his antlers. 

Robert did not consider that his feral nephew was busy bottling the sadness of another, storing the drops of tears in the valves and wells of his heart. Hannibal knew these tears would warm him as he wandered the cold halls of his childhood home. He knew that they would call him home; Will would call him home, and he’d climb the threads of their intimacy over the oceans. He’d curl up on Will’s floor and sleep soundly knowing that the empath slept soundly, and still he would not admit his attraction to the man to himself, and still he would not accept the love bubbling in his chest, a devotion as swift and vibrant as the process of imprinting. But still, still he would think of the way Will looked limned with firelight, like a god, like a saint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever just written something, and rewritten it, and edited it over and over, and you're still not pleased with it? Well, that was the case here--I'm sorry for the delay! This is my first piece of extended fiction and I'm still trying to figure things out, primarily pacing. It causes occasional speed-bumps! 
> 
> I go back to college this week so updates might start to be a little slower again (I'm hoping to have something up every 2 weeks). Thank you for sticking with me! Your comments always make my day a lot brighter. To all of you starting your academic years, good luck, and study hard!


	14. Flicker

XIV

“So,” said Will, “What’s done is done.” 

And what was done was his resignation from the FBI, a hopefully temporary solution to a nagging problem. Jack’s eyes had been tired when Will had told him the news. Crawford had seen many men broken by the world, broken by power and work and the yoke of their sanity; he had watched officials come and go with the tides of corruption, and he had seen interns duck out at the sight of butchered children. The FBI was not for everyone, but he had hoped it would be for Will Graham and his keen, queer mind. It disappointed Crawford that the profiler no longer felt that he was cut out for this work but he argued very little, cowed by the icy stare of Dr. Lecter; the man had loomed over Will’s shoulder, a red, slick devil missing his angelic counterpart. 

When Alana Bloom found him later, Jack was sitting at his desk, his fingers pressed into his temple to ease the ache. It is difficult for any person to accept that their opinion might be misguided; it is especially difficult for one who will have the eyes of an entire department leering down at him, wondering if his prowess might be waning with age. 

Hannibal had driven Will to Quantico after a long argument. Much of the trip was spent in silence and Will had even dozed as they drove along the highway, having spent most of the previous night pacing and rifling through his various awards and commendations. He was grateful that the semester was finished so that he wouldn’t have to face his students, but he knew that they would hear of his resignation regardless and that their mouths would flutter and gab with the shock of a generation that still thinks itself invincible. He wished that he could give them some words of power and comfort, but he was no good at stoicism. 

Now, he and Hannibal were sitting in the psychiatrist’s home study with snifters of brandy balanced in their palms. Hannibal had insisted on serving him dinner but didn’t protest when Will picked through it. Placing dessert in the cooler, he had led the younger man to the lounge and instructed him to start a fire while he went to fetch his glassware, hoping to keep Will’s hands busy in order to settle his mind, hoping that the strike of the match and the whiff of potassium chlorate, smoky and strong, would be therapeutic. 

“What’s done is done,” he parroted now, swirling the contents of his glass and following Will’s wandering gaze. “Was it easier or harder than you thought it would be?” 

“Both, I suppose.” Will hadn’t touched his drink, but had been tracing his finger around the rim for a few minutes now. “Jack didn’t argue as much as I thought he would, so that was easier.” 

Hannibal wondered how Will regarded Jack, whether he saw him as a father figure, an ideal to stride towards, or a taskmaster. He knew that if he were to ask him, Will would merely shrug and reply vaguely that Jack had a hard job, that he did what he had to do. That no, he wasn’t resentful. That no, he didn’t want to see Jack begin the long, inevitable downward spiral of any government official. 

That no, he didn’t really want to talk about this anymore. 

“I’m just…” Will fished for a word. “I’m just sad. I’m disappointed in myself. I was proud of my work. I was proud of my students. I know it’s not permanent, but….”

“But it must be significant. You won’t be returning to the classroom until next autumn at the earliest, Will. Your return to the field will be much later. The mind isn’t like a broken arm; you cannot simply place a cast on it and wait six weeks for the bone to mend. No, you must rewire, recalibrate, and redesign.”

Resent shone bitter on Will’s face and simmered in his words. “Does that mean that I’ll officially be in therapy, Dr. Lecter?”

A solemn owl’s blink from the doctor. “I would like for you to be.”

Hannibal did not receive a reply to that, though he supposed the other’s silence was reply enough. Will merely sighed and stared at the fireplace, a sad sort of exasperation written plainly across his features. “We don’t need to start immediately,” Hannibal added, thinking then of Robert’s letter sitting on his desk, often thumbed but neither read again nor replied to. “Perhaps you’d like to take a month to yourself.”

Will laughed and the sound was empty. “I don’t know if I trust myself to keep busy. I think you’d be spending more weekends at my house trying to keep me from wandering off. The more I dwell, the worse it is. Mind as well just bite the bullet and dive right into treatment.” The words were half-joking, meant to sound light-hearted and almost teasing, but Hannibal didn’t miss the question buried within them; Will was reaching out for help in his own distant way. A frown cracked the psychiatrist’s features. 

Hannibal was no stranger to the nausea that bad news brought and stalled before admitting his hiatus to Will, allowing a generous sip of brandy to grace his lips, rest on his tongue, absorb. Hannibal, for all of his alien coldness, for the lofty and celestial pedestal he had built himself, dreaded being an ill-burdened messenger as much as the next man, at least to those few he cared about. Yanking Jack’s best tool from him had been a delight. But to disappoint Will of all people, angry, bitter Will Graham, a man whose loneliness he could taste and sorrow he could smell, whose discontent hummed with the whine of a theremin…

His throat clicked as he swallowed. A gusty sigh breezed over the rim of the glass. Hannibal was not used to regret. He was not used to guilt, though it crawled from his belly now, made his mouth stiff. 

His words were slow, dropped like stones. “I regret to say that I have to leave for a bit, Will. I received a letter from my uncle in Lithuania; he wants me to return home.” He paused, then admitted: “The timing is unfortunate. I did not mean for this to happen this way.” Despite all of his manipulations, despite all of the lies he has had to craft to cover his identity as a predator of man, he did not mean to cause Will harm. It had been tempting at the very beginning; it would have been amusing to muddy Will’s bloodhound nose and send him and the FBI on a frenzied hunt. He had considered it when he looked at Will’s profile for the first time after Jack had visited him; he admittedly had gone to bed and dreamed of pulling the wool over Will Graham’s eyes. But he had dreamed too of acceptance and empathy, of sharing the thrill of the hunt with a man who could inhabit anyone’s mind, and it was this fantasy that had haunted him at the beginning of their relationship. Hannibal had pinned the concept of empathy to his heart. He worried now that the pins were making that great pulsing organ bleed as he looked at the man beside him who seemed so genuinely disappointed, who only breathed a quiet “oh” in response to Hannibal’s departure. Will wore his sadness so beautifully that Hannibal found it hard to look at him. He wasn’t used to the closeness he felt towards the man, or the cloying sense of guilt. Certainly, he was not used to the urge to cup Will’s face in his hands, be they made of black bone or soft skin. 

He thought of his parents suddenly. Thought of soft kisses pressed to cheeks. Thought of tender, quiet closeness. _Intimacy._ No, that wasn’t intimacy, not entirely. _Love._

Love?

Hannibal let that thought dart back into the shadows of his mind. It chattered an echoing question as it fled, one which he ignored, one which he turned his ears away from. _Do you lo-o-o-ve Will Graham?_ that specter laughed. _You, scourge of man, in **love**?_

“I wonder if either of us can survive this separation, Hannibal,” Will sighed, finally lifting his snifter to his lips. For a moment Hannibal wondered if the man could hear his thoughts, and he watched his throat work as he swallowed a sip of brandy.

“I wondered a similar thing myself,” he admitted. “I fear that I will return and you will be flooded with more resentment towards me. I fear that you will feel abandoned.” He paused and waited for Will to reply, received silence in return. Was he giving himself too much credit? Was it possible that he was more dependent on Will Graham than Will Graham was on him? 

Hiding the desperation he was feeling, Hannibal ventured: “What will you do while I’m gone?” 

The profiler thought for a moment, and his answer was a sigh; stormy sorrow dredged up the dark silt of his mind. “Fix up my dad’s boat, maybe. Fish. Wear myself out each and every day so that my body is too tired to rouse itself at night. Unplug my TV so that I can never hear the name of the FBI. So I can’t see Jack’s face. So I’m not tempted to go back.” 

It sounded so sad. It sounded so lonely. Will Graham enduring that cold Wolf Trap winter, Will Graham with only his dogs to keep him company. Will Graham being dragged back into the maw of madness, chewed up by the crime scenes he dissected, spit out deranged.

Spit out with a bullet in his head. Useless.

Fear reared its head in his chest. Hannibal pursed his lips. He was not an impulsive man, but impulse was bubbling to his surface, spilling from his lips now—

“Come with me.” 

“What?”

“To Lithuania. Come with me.” 

Will looked genuinely taken aback, almost fearful. “Hannibal, I’ll be fine.”

“No, you will fall back into despair. Your nightmares will open their jaws up underneath you and you will walk out into the biting cold, and I will not be able to rest knowing how you wander. The FBI will coax you back into its arms. I will come back, but you will be gone.” 

Will’s mouth opened and shut again. A thousand thoughts seemed to flicker and duel in the blue of his eyes. He gaped, fish-lipped, tried his hand at stoicism and deepness, tried desperately to conjure some noble refusal of Hannibal’s offer, trying to muster anger, even, but merely said very hesitantly:

“It’s your family. I—I would be intruding.”

“You would be welcome company to me. They hold very little of my affection.”

A pause. Something flashed in Will’s eyes that Hannibal can’t quite place. Knowing, perhaps. Surprise. 

“Do I,” Will started slowly, his gaze trailing up to meet Hannibal’s with a frightening, glacial intensity, “Hold your affection?” 

The precipice, reached again. They were gearing towards a long, long fall.

Hannibal imagined he could hear Will’s heartbeat in that moment, the steady, potent thud of life. A pause—why was their relationship marred with pauses? Why was it not marred by tumbled, frenzied words, the soft bursts of breath against ears? Why had Hannibal not anticipated this when he had led Will up to the sultry dark of his study?

The brandy was set down. Whispered then, softly: 

“Yes.”

Whispered then, softly: 

“In what way?”

Whispered then, softly: 

“In the way of Achilles and Patroclus. In comradery and understanding. In brotherhood and romance.”

“Romance,” Will scoffed, “And brotherhood. You have known me for only weeks.”

“I feel,” Hannibal murmured, “As if I have known you forever.” 

Will shivered, and the chill stole his words.

“When I was young,” Hannibal continued, “The witch who gave me my antlers also gave me a trinket from Louisiana—a gris-gris, red as blood. She told me it was not the only thing I would pick up from there in my life. I wonder, Will, if she meant you.”

Will’s gaze sunk to the fire. 

“There has always been a place for you in my life,” Hannibal continued, leaning against the arm of his chair that was closest to Will and extending his hand slowly, unfurling his fingers towards the man. “Is there a place for me in your life, Will? Can you _make_ a place? Or are all of the hills and valleys of your heart inhabited by bloody-mouthed killers?”

Will stared at the hand that was offered to him. “There has been a hole,” he admitted. “That the killers have not found.” He too slowly reached out, danced his fingertips along the pads of Hannibal’s fingers, slid his digits to rest atop Hannibal’s own. How strange this closeness was; how strange for Will Graham to be playing with another’s hand. These soft touches had not been felt in years. 

“I don’t believe in fate and inevitability, Hannibal. I don’t believe that I was meant to find you. But you complement me.” Will curled his fingers. “You make me feel safe, and that is what matters most to me.” 

Hannibal’s thumb traced along the meat of Will’s palm. “You are enamored with security.”

“It’s the only thing that will fill that hole.” Will’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips. “When you told me that you would protect me, I suppose that that was when I knew I would keep you in my life, despite our differences, despite the way that we scratch at each other’s nerves.

“I cherish,” Will continued with great clarity, “How safe you make me feel. I don’t know why you make me feel so protected, but you do. You shouldn’t, you’re—you know.” 

“I should frighten you.” Will nodded.

“I haven’t—“ A pause, a hitch of pain in Will’s voice. “I haven’t felt safe in a long time.” 

“Until now?”

Will’s eyes trailed upwards and he swallowed hard, his tongue momentarily lost. “Until now. And so…and so I can safely admit that I enjoy your company, even when we bicker. I enjoy going to bed at night knowing that you’re there. I—god, don’t make me go on. This is so sappy. This is so embarrassing.”

“I don’t feel embarrassed. I feel warmed.” Gently Hannibal’s hand twisted and hooked, intertwining Will’s fingers with his own. “It would mean so much to me if you came to Lithuania. I might not dread the trip should you come.” _Come home with me._

Will Graham could not talk of love and affection anymore; he feared the sugary feeling might choke him. “Tell me about Lithuania. Tell me about what would happen.” 

“Well,” Hannibal began, “You would have to meet my family, or at least part of it. I’m not sure who will be there—my uncle and his wife, surely. Perhaps some of my cousins. I have seven, and they are all married.” It would be nice to see them, he thought, but at the same time the thought of visiting with them made his temper flare. “They think that I’m strange, you know. You would not be intruding on their lifestyle any more than I would.” 

Will laughed brittly “How are you strange?”

“Well, I’m not married, despite their best efforts. I haven’t claimed one of the many great halls of Italy or Spain to be my home. When they heard that I was studying in America many years ago, they were appalled. It’s just how they are, you see—traditional, resistant to change even while the world shifts around them. There is a set lifestyle that they follow. I’ve chosen a different path. Hardly even different—we are all involved in the sciences, the philosophies, and the arts, and we use out fortune to patron these things—but _alternate_ , I suppose. Different enough for them to turn their noses up at me, as it were. They wish for the world to stay still. It has not, much to their dismay, and I have not resisted its spin.” 

“That explains a lot about you, actually. A lot about _this_.” Will pressed his fingers against Hannibal’s knuckles. 

“Does it?” 

“You’re so isolated. Not a proper human, not a proper wendigo. Or, rather, not a proper Lecter. The name only means so much, doesn’t it? It’s the attitude that makes the man.”

“I’m not alone anymore, and I don’t intend to be alone again.” Hannibal’s words were forceful, matched by the intensity of his maroon stare. Will felt an involuntary shiver ripple through him, but his herbivorous fear did not hinder the cheeky tone of his next words.

“Bold words, Dr. Lecter.”

Bold words indeed. As Hannibal stared at him, he realized that he knew nothing of Will’s romantic life besides that it was empty. Perhaps he was not even attracted to men. Perhaps he was not attracted to anyone. But then his previous words rang clear in the wendigo’s mind, and he realized that the biggest criteria for Will’s attraction was safety. Should Hannibal keep him safe, should he soothe out the wrinkles of his frayed mind, should he wrap Will so tightly in his arms at night that he could not squirm, let alone sleepwalk, then perhaps Will would love him. Perhaps the man already did; perhaps he just did not have a name for the warmth he felt. 

Besides, Hannibal was a persistent, patient man. He could wait for Will Graham. He had _years_ to wait for Will Graham. 

With love’s vodka loosening his tongue, Hannibal said, almost pleaded: “Come with me to Lithuania. Let me court you. Let me show you the gardens of my childhood and the realities of my life. If, when we return home, you decide that you don’t want the relationship, then you are free to say so and our bargain will not be harmed. We will go back to our friendship of convenience, of protection and empathy, and we will forget Lithuania, we will forget affection.”

Will gazed at him for a moment, a sly cat’s smile softening his lips. Hannibal thought that he was crafting a refusal when at last, he replied, slow and sharp: “Will your relatives want to eat me?”

A smile split Hannibal’s face. Clever boy with a tongue of knives; perhaps another day he would’ve taken offense at Will’s keen words, lectured him on politeness and restraint. But how could he possibly be angry with Will Graham when he was limned with firelight, gilded with the bright stare of the flames, his lips curved into a cunning smile? Hannibal brought Will’s hand closer and bent his head to mouth it gently, his teeth tracing along the blue of the veins, his fingers disentangling to better grip the appendage. “If they did,” he murmured low against Will’s skin, “It would be in hopes of absorbing even half of your brilliant mind.”

Humming in response, Will watched Hannibal’s lips work against the pale expanse of his hand, ghosting along his knuckles. Strange, he thought, to be this close to another again. Strange, but not unpleasant. He took his hand away from Hannibal and leaned his body in closer, asking, “So, when do we leave?”

Hannibal lips cracked to reveal a toothy smile. “Brilliant boy,” he marveled, reaching out to cup Will’s face in his hand. Closing the distance between them, he pressed his lips to Will’s mouth, delighting when the other relaxed, and took the opportunity to explore the lines of his lips. Closeness, intimacy, the tension of the hours they’d spent together, consummated in a gentle, lazy kiss. And to think that just the day before they had been needling each other, thinking not of romance but of livid, pyroclastic anger. 

“Where did all of your fiery temper go?” asked the wendigo, pulling away to breathe in Will’s scent. 

“Sated by good food and good wine. It’ll come back,” Will promised, “And you will regret bringing me to Europe. Your family will talk”

“Impossible. I hope that you rattle them.” His lips covered Will’s again briefly; briefly he let his tongue swipe over the swell of the other’s lower lip. “I hope that you goad and niggle and insult them.”

“Don’t give me ideas,” Will laughed breathily, parting his mouth to snare Hannibal’s upper lip in his teeth. 

The fire crackled as a log sighed and succumbed, but they were lost in their own heat, warmed by foreign closeness, warmed by each other and the sparks they ignited. A cold wind blew through the trees of Lithuania, and somewhere Jadvyga turned in her sleep, and somewhere four men with guns on their backs made a fire, the eyes of the flames reflecting yellow on their gloves, reflecting white on their knives. 

“Just like the old days, huh?” One of them laughed, blowing on the embers.

“Mind as well steal a partridge for our trouble,” another replied. A dog brayed somewhere on the Lecter’s lawn, the noise shushed by a weary handler. As snow began to trickle from the sky as softly as tears, the hunters watched a black stag move through the trees. It pricked its ears as it saw them and then skittered, grunting, back into the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! This semester is going to be a little crazy, so unfortunately I won't be able to write that much. I'm hoping to update at least once a month. I'm also developing some other projects that have been rattling around my head for a while, so stay tuned for those!
> 
> That being said, welcome to the meat of the story! If I had had my way with the original plot draft, this would've happened at least five chapters ago, haha. I'm really pleased that we're finally heading off to Lithuania and I hope that you guys enjoy meeting the rest of the wendigo crew. As always, every comment, kudo, and share means the world to me; thank you for being such a supportive, vocal audience. 
> 
> Happy studies, happy Fall!


	15. Down a Snowy Path

XV.

Across the seas they went, through countries and continents until finally Hannibal and Will touched down on Lithuanian turf, the plane roaring to a halt on the tarmac. They were carted from the airport by an elderly man in a baseball cap who owned a small, rattling car; he didn’t speak to the pair of men despite Hannibal’s best efforts to strike up a conversation, and the trip was spent in uncomfortable silence. Will radiated nervousness, and so Hannibal gently held his hand during the car ride, smoothing out the knobs of his knuckles, pressing designs into his palm with the tips of his fingers. There was nothing for them to do but stew in silence and nerves. Will’s pulse thrummed, hummingbird-fast.

After hours of travel, they rumbled to an abrupt stop on a forested road, the car lurching to a stop on the dirt. They swayed with the death throes of the engine, their shoulders tapping together as the gear was cranked into park. 

“I’m not going any further than this.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hannibal asked. 

The driver, with a horse’s wild, nervous eyes, twisted around in his seat to cast his gaze on the men in the back. “I’m not heading up into that town. You can get out here.” 

“You’ve been paid,” Hannibal argued, tilting his head in an expression that Will was starting to recognize. The wendigo regarded the rude like prey. 

“I’m paid to drive you as close to the village as I can get. This is as close as I can get without feeling like Satan’s crawled into my britches.” The man’s eyes were white and wide, and they stubbornly refused to meet Hannibal’s maroon stare. Firmer now, but somehow still wavering: “You can get out here.”

Hannibal blinked and straightened his head. “Alright.” 

The driver popped the trunk of the car and said nothing more. 

Squeezing Will’s hand, Hannibal pushed the door open and swung his legs out of the car. Heading to the open trunk, he pulled his and Will’s bags out. The profiler trailed quietly behind him and stood by his shoulder, hands flexing and twitching at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling. “You boys all set out there?” the driver called, sticking his neck out the window. His breath rose up from his lips like smoke. “Well, alright. Tell Mr. Lecter his check came. Better start hoofing it, boys.” And with that he kicked the car back to life, cranked it in a sharp semicircle, and sped back towards less foreboding grounds as if Satan himself was click-click-clicking after him on two cloven feet. 

“Well,” said Hannibal, “That was awfully rude. We must be close though. Will?”

The man had visibly paled. “This was a bad idea,” he murmured, lifting his face to stare at the dark skeletons of the trees. His hands jerked up to his chest, where he soothed their frantic dance.

“Nonsense. He was just a superstitious old man.” 

A hush fell over the woods and the silence echoed on the snow, swallowing and yawning. Somewhere in the bones of the trees a crow hopped, shrieked, and fell silent. 

“Will, should I—?” 

The profiler held his hand up.

Somewhere down the road came a soft grinding, the heavy gust of an animal’s breath. From the bleak and gray landscape emerged a stag as black as night, its head lowered in exertion, antlers swaying with its gait like the arms of the trees. Following it, attached to its gleaming, brilliant black harness, was a wagon of dark wood manned by a single figure wrapped tightly in furs. As the stag walked closer, Will could see the twin puffs of its breath bursting from its nostrils, foggy signs of vitality and cold. There was no mistaking that this was their ride.

The driver pulled the stag to a stop and Will was overcome with the urge to reach out and run his fingers through its feathery ruff. He glanced to Hannibal and found the man smiling. The driver pulled the fur from their face, tucking it beneath their chin, and said, with the hint of an accent tinting their tongue, “Dr. Lecter?”

“Is that you buried beneath those pelts, Chiyoh?” he replied warmly, peering up at the woman manning the cart. “You were but a child when I last saw you. I am surprised to see that you are still here. I had thought that your arrangement was temporary.” 

“It was,” the woman smirked, “But Lady Murasaki is persuasive. She asked me to stay.” Impatiently, the black stag huffed. A warmer barn was calling it home. 

“So she is.” Hannibal bent to pick up his and Will’s bags, lifting them into the wagon. As Will boarded alongside him, he supposed that he should get used to this, to familial conversations flying over his head, to family secrets, to names that held no other meaning to him besides their musicality. The girl at the reins cast him a wayward look as he settled into his seat. He supposed he should get used to _this_ too, these sideways glances. 

“You brought company.”

“Ah—how rude of me. Chiyoh, this is Will Graham. He is taking a break from his work at the FBI to join me here.”

She snapped the reins against the stag’s back. The beast grunted as it felt the new weight, head dipping, legs digging into the muddied snow. “Does Robert know?”

“No. He will find that rude, I’m sure. It was a rather spur of the moment decision.” 

She hummed and steered the wagon in a half circle, turning the hart back down the path it came from. Its pace was quicker now as it followed its hoof prints back to hay and back to warm mashes laced with blood and honey. Its driver’s fingers worked nervously into the leather of its reins. 

“There won’t be any trouble, Chiyoh.” Hannibal reassured the quiet young woman. “He knows. I wouldn’t have brought him here if he didn’t know.”

“He knows, but he is _not_ , I assume. Robert will still be displeased.” The reins snapped again and the stag lengthened its gait, head raising nobly as it stepped down the muddy path. Will found himself scooching closer to Hannibal, his thigh flush against the other’s, his hand sliding down to grip his knee nervously. He focused his attention on the flick and twist of the stag’s black ears, wondering how far down this fairy tale went, if he would touch a murky bottom and sink further into madness. 

“I can take care of Robert.” Hannibal’s voice hardened, and a shiver trickled down Will’s spine. The fire in the wendigo’s voice didn’t prompt arousal. It merely prompted fear.

“What’s the story with the deer?” Will blurted suddenly, desperately hoping to diffuse the tension that was already rising. Chiyoh seemed surprised to hear him speak. 

“We breed them,” Hannibal said proudly. “There is a whole herd back at the estate. The first was a gift from Jadvyga, I believe. We mixed him with a local breed, and the magic made his bloodline pure. They’re draft animals, companions, rarely food. The children ride them.” 

“Is everything in your life touched by magic?” Will murmured, reaching for Hannibal’s hand and lacing their fingers together. 

“In a way, I suppose.” 

Chiyoh chuckled at that, but said nothing. Already Will knew that she was a woman defined not by her words, but by her silence. Ethereal ghost, she haunted conversations, left them cold but not empty. The cogs of Will’s mind wheeled and clicked. He was starting to see this woman clearly already. That laugh—contempt. Who would be spiteful of magic? Someone without it, of course. Something about a Lady Murasaki…Will remembered her as Hannibal’s aunt. He glanced at Chiyoh, dressed warmly in furs and a worker’s clothing. A servant. She didn’t seem bitter, but she did seem wise. Someone who held her tongue when the other workers griped about their masters’ laziness. Someone who held her private jokes close to her breast. She passed judgement and let it pass just as quickly. 

“You said that he is part of the FBI—did your hunting habits betray you, Hannibal?” 

Again Will shivered. He still did not like to think about the wendigo’s victims. Hannibal’s grip on his hand tightened and he replied, “No, I was asked to assist Will on a case. Things grew dangerous, and my hand was forced.” He did not mentioned how he had stalked Will many nights before, following him on his eternal, drowsy circles. Robert would be livid if he heard of it. He would snarl and snatch Hannibal by the nape, shake him like a dog and clack his bared teeth in his face. _Idiotas!_

Again, Chiyoh merely hummed. Some eerie sound rose from the trees and the stag lifted its head, roaring its own bugling cry. “You’ll have to tell the kitchen,” she mused as the call echoed and died. 

“They’ll be happy to make arrangements if it is necessary. They do for Lady Murasaki.”

“Of course.” 

And again they fell into a hush. Will found the silence unbearable; distantly he gazed out to the trees, his eyes fixed on their gray spines, his mind traveling elsewhere, worrying and wondering and rubbing cat-like against the warmth of Hannibal’s body against his own. 

There would be an adjustment period, Will knew. He would have to grow accustomed to living among the rich, living with their servants, with their opulence. He would have to ease himself into a world where magic was quotidian, where raven-black stags pulled carts instead of horses, where the inhabitants of the house might at any moments sprout hooves and fur. He would have to live among cannibals. He would have to live among people-beasts who surely did not value human life as he did. 

He was beginning to wonder, as the trees peeled away to reveal the beginning of civilization, if this was a bad idea. He supposed that he couldn’t let fear stop him now—what was done was done, and he had chosen to board the plane to Lithuania. Impulsive, perhaps. It had felt so right at the time. 

Fear. Trembling, toxic fear, rising up his throat. Something answered the stag in the woods somewhere. Trembling, toxic, tittering fear, trapped in his chest and trying to burst out. What’s done is done. It had felt so right at the time. 

As buildings began to rise from the landscape, Will was taken back by how old they looked, and for a moment his fear was calmed by their rustic beauty. Wooden, topped by thatched roofs and surrounded by fences and livestock, they certainly fit the fairy tale that he felt he was stepping into. The farms stretched for many miles, the log houses generously separated and lonely against the winter landscape, before eventually condensing into what appeared to be a village rising on the horizon. Ribbons of smoke curled up from chimneys and noise trickled to their ears as they grew closer; people were hawking wares, their prices jumbled and lost to his ears. Many of the houses were made of the same types of logs as the barns; a few were made of stone and fit poorly amongst the landscape. 

The path flared as they grew closer to the town and eventually people began to appear, their faces lost in bundles of rags and furs. The dirt gave way to lumpy cobblestone and the percussive beat of the stag’s hooves upon the rock prompted many to lift their heads to gaze at the wagon as it passed. Conversations faded to a hush as Chiyoh and her passengers entered town. The entire village froze as if shocked, their eyes fearful as the wagon passed. They recognized the black stag and its driver; how could they not? They recognized too the face of Hannibal Lecter. They always knew the faces of the _raginio tie_. 

Hannibal regarded them with a prince’s cool indifference, his eyes empty as they swept along the stony faces. He had not visited this town in many years, decades, even; these people did not hold his affection, and this town held few memories. What concerned him more was the castle looming in the distance, the tallest parts of it sticking up above the barren trees. He was not deaf to the silence as he passed and he understood fully what it meant. The wheels clicked eerily on the street and the stag grunted occasionally in annoyance at the crowds yet the people said nothing. It was not until they had made their way to the other side of town, leaving the click of the cobblestone to the rumble of the dirt, that he heard a man whisper coldly, _”The beasts are congregating.”_

So, Chiyoh had been making this trip often as of late. He straightened in his seat and thought little of what this could mean, choosing instead to focus on the twitchy man beside him. 

“It’s a very old town,” he whispered, squeezing Will’s hand. “Time has hardly touched it. You will not be spending much time there.”

Will tried to keep the tremor from his voice, but he found anxiety overwhelming him. “They don’t like you.” 

It was true, of course; anyone could see the frigidity with which the people stared at him. Something cold crossed across Hannibal’s face, and an elegant shrug lifted his shoulders. “We have been generous to them, for my ancestor was not. A few generations ago, we gave them the funds to build their church. We send them food. We give them that which we no longer need. I do not understand their vitriol. We have kept the town alive.”

 _But where do you hunt?_ Will wanted to ask, though wisely he kept his mouth shut. An argument for another time. Hannibal peered at him quizzically. 

“Who else have you brought up to the estate, Chiyoh?” Hannibal called up the woman as the forest swallowed them again. 

“Everyone but you, Dr. Lecter. James and Zuri arrived two days ago.”

“Robert will be displeased with me, then.”

Chiyoh tilted her head. “He will forgive your lateness to nag you for your carelessness.”

“Let him. I trust Will.” 

Silence then, for Chiyoh had nothing to say. She snapped the leather reins against the black stag’s back and it jerked into a reindeer’s trot; the percussion of its feathered hooves pounded a soothing rhythm to Will, who felt his anxiety seep outwards with each stomp and clack. Even if the rest of the wendigos gave him quizzical looks, even if they paid him little mind and saw him as something tertiary, as something unimportant, he would have Hannibal, and that’s why he was here. Should he be prey and not a person, meat and not man, he would have Hannibal. That was why he was here. That was why he had given his dogs to Beverly to watch. That was why he had lied and told everyone that he was headed back to Louisiana to bury the dead; Dr. Lecter had said that it might be therapeutic, he had fibbed. He did not tell them about tender kisses by the fire. He did not tell them of intimacy. 

_I trust Will._

He wouldn’t tell them of that either, how it made his heart soar. I trust Will. I trust Will. And I trust you, you man-eating bastard, you, scourge of men, you, pompous, haughty prick. Should Hannibal open his jaws wide, Will would walk in. 

The wagon hit a bump and lurched. Will felt something fall off a shelf in his head, something dark, something that spilled and spread through his happiness like ink. 

Was Hannibal leading him to a slaughterhouse?

The deer smoothed its gait and again the cart rocked soothingly. If Hannibal wanted to eat him, he would’ve done so when he first saw him sleepwalking. He couldn’t let doubt slip in now, not when he was committed. He sidled closer to the shapeshifter and spent the rest of the trip with his thigh rubbing against the other’s. The warmth settled his pulse and, for now, it bottled his insidious thoughts. 

Eventually the path grew wider again, and they were brought to a great iron gate. Fixed to the center was the Lecter’s family emblem, decorated with a sneering face and two rearing hounds, and beyond that was more woodland, filled with the sounds of birds as they squabbled over the winter’s meager gifts. Chiyoh hopped down to open the gate, pulled the stag and its cart through, and then closed it with a metallic screech. 

The area was dense with gnarled, barren trunks. Will imagined how lush these woods must be in the summer, how gently light would dapple the ground as it filtered through the leaves. The estate would be beautiful, Will thought, but now, locked in the hands of cold and snow, it was eerie, silent. Occasionally something would crack or crunch; occasionally, far away, there would be soft whisper of black against the snow, and the stag pulling the cart would lift his head and allow excited puffs of breath to leave his lips. Perhaps one of his brothers was passing by. Perhaps there were dark things in the woods.

They drove in silence and buildings began to appear in the forest, small shacks with stone chimneys, little hunting lodges that warded off the biting cold. These served as glimpses of civilization and were regal in their own rustic way, but it was not until the trees broke that the extent of the Lecter’s estate was clear. 

Immediately visible was the great stone castle of the estate’s masters; Lecter Castle loomed above all else, dark, filled with darker things still. There were no walls nor spires; the place resembled a mansion more than a palace. Nestled around the building were smaller houses of stone and wood; these were the servants quarters, and there were many. To the side of the path was a stable made of heavy cobbles. Further away, Will could hear the soft noises of other livestock, the cluck and squawk of henneries and rookeries, the brays of a kennel.

The estate appeared to be a mostly self-sufficient unit; Will knew that there were surely other secrets on this land, other workshops, other chambers. He imagined too that there must a cemetery somewhere among the weeping trees, for the Lecters surely would not bury their dead among the commoners. He wondered if there was a church. He could not imagine the Lecter’s practicing religion now. 

The stag plodded towards the great stone house and soon people began to appear, women bundled in work clothes. They gazed at the wagon quizzically as it passed, and a few raised their hands in greeting, salutations leaving their lips that were lost to the blowing wind. He recalled Hannibal’s story, recalled how they had once offered servitude to those escaping submission. He wondered if they still struck similar bargains with the girls of the town below. 

As they grew closer to the house, the details of the structure became became evident. The entire building was made of the same dark shone and was rather simply decorated. A few modern touches could be seen—an abandoned white trellis, dark mahogany shutters on the winters—but the place still felt like something lost in time. The skeletons of withered vines clung limply to the stone. A few gargoyles sneered down at them, their hides textured with layers of granite feathers. 

As they plodded towards the stairs, the great double doors, decorated with the coils of intertwining snakes and the swelling diamonds of leaves, opened a crack and a woman slipped out, her many cloaks nearly getting caught as the jaws of the door snapped shut. She beamed enthusiastically as the stag sighed and stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Your timing is excellent,” she said, shoes tapping down the steps as she went to the wagon. “They all just sat down to dinner.” She smiled at the men, plucked her skirts up and curtsied. “Welcome home, Dr. Lecter. I’m Kitty. Who is your companion?” 

“This is Will Graham.” Hannibal answered for him; Will’s eyes were too busy roaming over the yellow windows of the castle to pay much attention to the girl peering up at him. 

“Will Graham! It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Graham. Will Graham of the Lincolnshire Grahams, or…?” 

Hannibal pressed his finger into the meat of Will’s thigh; he jolted and looked down at the girl. Kitty’s hair was pulled back tightly into a bun, somehow making the white of her smile seem more severe. “ What? Ah—no. Just…Graham.”

“Of course.” Kitty nodded graciously, her grin never faltering. 

“Will is a profiler and teacher for the FBI,” Hannibal added, squeezing Will’s hand. 

“That’s admirable work, sir.” Did she know what the FBI was, Will wondered? How deep down the rabbit hole were the inhabitants of the castle? How strong was the vortex that tugged them into history? The girl went around the back to lug the pair’s bags from the wagon. “Do you enjoy teaching?” 

“It has its ups and downs. I—I can get my bag.” Will clambered off the wagon to grab his suitcase from the girl’s hand before she could protest. The thought of another person doing something as simple as carry his luggage for him made his gut churn. Hannibal smiled and held out his own hand to take his leather suitcase from the servant. A smile played at Chiyoh’s lips that was only seen by the wendigo, whose lips were stretched a wry grin of their own. 

“Let me know if you need help with the animals when I’m done settling these gentlemen in,” Kitty called back to Chiyoh as she bounded up the steps. Chiyoh replied with a soft smile, snapped the reins against the stag’s back and, as suddenly as she had appeared, was gone. A gusty flurry swallowed her whole.

At the top of the stairs, Hannibal turned to Kitty, asking, “You said that dinner was being served?”

“Yes! If you’d like me to take your bags, you can go join the others. They’ll be pleased to see you.”

“Thank you. First, though, would you run off to the kitchen and tell them to make a separate dish for Will of whatever Lady Murasaki is eating?”

“Oh,” Kitty’s gaze slid over to Will. “Of course. Not a problem, sir. And, uhm, will it be one or two bedrooms, sir? There’s one ready right now, but I can easily—“

“One is fine,” Will blurted. Hannibal kept his face stony, but he wanted to grin like the fox who caught the hen. It was too bad, he thought, that it was likely Will’s discomfort at having others do something as simple as make a bed for him that prompted his swift response. He wouldn’t complain, of course. It had been a long time since he had felt the warmth of another at night. 

Kitty nodded and ushered them through the doors, then skipped off to do as she was asked. Warmth flooded Will’s body as they stepped into the foyer of the castle; the faint scent of burning wood reached his nose and immediately he was comforted by how familiar it was. 

The entrance of the dwelling was surprisingly well-lit, almost sunny in its vibrant hues. Electric lighting sat in sconces on the walls and threw brilliant highlights onto the white marble floor. Artwork lined the walls, some of which featured who Will presumed were Hannibal’s relatives, other depicting the wide mouthed braying of dogs as they harried harts and hares. Black antlers sat on wooden tables and flowers wilted in vases.

All in all, it was a tasteful space, warm and inviting, luxurious yet not overbearing; quite the opposite of what Will had been expecting, if he was honest with himself. The castle had seemed like such a cold, foreboding place in Hannibal’s stories. He wondered, glancing to the older man, what warmth he held for it now in his later years. 

“Don’t be nervous,” Hannibal murmured, prying Will’s bag from his hand. 

Reverently, Will’s fingers ghosted over the snout of a bust shaped like a stag. “Easy for you to say.” 

“They’ll interrogate you about your titles and family, and they’ll quickly realize that you can offer little that will interest them and move onto other gossip. I don’t mean that as an offense—in fact, I think that it may be a boon to you. You don’t have any siblings cheating on their wives with English countesses for them to blather on about.” Hannibal set the suitcases down and snaked one of his hands up to squeeze Will’s shoulder, leaning in so that his words gusted against Will’s tempel. “Don’t let them intimidate you. You shine brighter than they ever will.” Softly he traced his lips on the shell of Will’s ear, teeth grazing the arc of cartilage. “Don’t hide your teeth.” 

With a shiver, Will nodded and was guided to the dining room. Rising from the table was the clink of silverware, the gurgle as a wineglass was refilled; rising from the table was a greeting as the men entered the room, a jubilant cry. Somewhere on this gloomy estate bones sat in a pit, sinews still attaching some of the joints, and the bloody jaws of a troubadour smiled into the darkness as if he still had a song on his lips. He would not be missed by anyone in his life, though he might be missed when the last scraps of his flesh vanished from the plates of those who ate him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to meet the family! One of the most challenging parts of this fic has been to name all of Hannibal's relatives; there sure are a lot of them. Here's hoping that I picked appropriately pompous names. 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading, commenting, and kudoing! I never expected to get this much feedback. From the bottom of my coffee-addicted heart, thank you.


	16. Meat

XVI.

“And here I thought your invitation had been lost in the mail,” quipped Robert Lecter, patriarch of the wendigo clan, as he stood to greet his nephew. The man was a mountain, broad and tall, and he carried himself rigidly at his full height, spine curved in elegantly as he stood, shoulders lifted to barrel his chest. Powerful, Will thought, a monarch, a demigod. He carried his weight with the gravity of an ox and flaunted his heft intimidatingly. Robert’s suit was tailored so that his might would not be missed; the sleeves bunched into tightened folds as he reached his hand out toward his nephew. “Welcome home, Hannibal.”

“Not lost,” Hannibal said, shaking his uncle’s hand, “Merely buried beneath piles of FBI paperwork. My apologies that I couldn’t come sooner. There were pressing matters at hand.” 

Dryly, Robert replied, “Hopefully not in regards to your arrest.” He regarded his nephew for a moment more, his eyes full of sharpened humor, and then his gaze slid past him to land on Will. Upon seeing the man, the light blinked out in Robert’s gaze. Will shivered once under the eldest wendigo’s cold, honey-brown stare. “You brought company,” Robert said warily. There was something unspoken in his words, Will thought—a threat, maybe. He imagined that the Lecters didn’t take kindly to strangers; surely a human stranger would be unwelcome, unless he was dinner. Will remembered the ride here, Chiyoh’s amusement, the thump of hooves against the ground. _I’ll take care of Robert._

Hannibal saw the way Robert’s face grew cold and squared his shoulders, posturing like a lion. “This is my partner, Will Graham.”

Will took a moment to look around the room now, suddenly acutely aware of all the eyes that were trained on him. Over twenty wendigos, ranging from Robert himself to a young boy who was not yet of age to attend school, were seated around the table; they paused in their meals now to peer at Will, their sharp eyes as blank as their patriarch’s. Again, he felt a shiver ripple down his spine, and imagined that this was how Daniel felt when he entered the den of lions. He found it hard to meet Robert’s gaze when finally he grew weary of balking at the shapeshifters’ stares, found it even harder to stick out his hand and offer it to the wendigo. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said with as much calm as he could muster. Robert allowed a polite smile to bow his lips, but offered no words in return. Will was surprised when he took his hand and offered it a curt, impersonal squeeze. 

A hush had fallen over the room and the other beasts were still staring, some with wry little smiles on their faces, others with no emotion at all. Surely, Will thought, they could smell his humanity on him as one smells meat searing in a pan. Surely that was why Robert looked so quietly furious, why the rest of them looked slightly amused, why a little boy whose head was covered in tight brown curls placed his fork down on the table and announced quite triumphantly, bouncing up from his chair, “That guy smells like dinner!”

Silence then, a heavier hush than before that their shock dropped on them carelessly. Then, from the man sitting beside the child, raucous, braying laughter that earned him filthy looks from the rest of the family and Robert Lecter’s fiery glare. The cackling wendigo held a napkin up to his mouth with one hand and waved the other in front of himself apologetically. “I’m sorry,” he sniggered, eyes crinkled tight with mirth. “Peto, apologize.”

“But he does,” the child, Peto, protested, drawing out the O, whining it. 

His father wiped his eyes and tucked his napkin back into his lap. “I’m sorry, I am really am,” he replied, having bottled his giggles. There was a lick of panic in his tone now as he realized the weight of what the child said. “They just say the strangest things, don’t they?”

“It’s alright, James,” said Hannibal. He clasped Will’s shoulder, giving the tense muscles a reassuring rub. “Will knows.”

Silence, again. The child was grinning still and bright curiosity had entered his father’s eyes. The rest of the raginio tie stared emotionlessly, their faces blank as they processed what Hannibal said. Their eyes trailed to Robert, carefully watched the way his lips twitched, the way his eyes grew hard. If any of them changed their somber expression it was only to mimic his frustration; Will watched their faces click into discontent and realized he was watching the interactions of a herd, of a pack. Robert was the alpha and they followed his words, his moods, his actions. Looking to Hannibal, who smiled wolfishly at his uncle, Will thought that he might have a challenger soon. Caught between these posturing alphas, he had no choice but to stay still and cast his gaze to a painting on the wall that featured two hounds chasing a panicked brown hare. It was difficult to resist the urge to dive down into some safer warren than this.

“Wonderful,” sighed Robert, whose patience seemed threadbare. “Sit down. There are extra place settings at the end. _Sit_.” His voice dipped into a gravelly growl. The rest of the wendigos lowered their gazes. 

Will was somewhat forcibly guided to his seat, frozen in place as he was. Again he thought about how this was a _bad idea_ , how he shouldn’t have let Hannibal convince him to come. He was not welcome here in this congress of beasts. They stared at him as he sat and every pair of lips turned downward when a servant came out with his meatless dish…

…save for one pair at the end of the table at the side of the fuming Robert, a pair belonging to a young woman who Will assumed was the Lady Murasaki. There was a brightness to this woman that Will recognized as intelligence and wit. Though she was silent and her lips were tightly pursed, he imagined her as someone who might talk for decades if you lent her your ear; he imagined too that she was trained in the art of conversation, being the cultured woman that she was, and that, though she might blather, she would never bore. Like Chiyoh, Murasaki knew the benefit of quiet, though, unlike her ward, she relished the opportunity to sing. She saw, and she judged, and she might whisper her opinion to you later, or she might not; she was picky with people, for she had a tendency to see the worst in them. She smiled at him as he unrolled his napkin and draped it on his lap, and Will forced himself to smile back. 

“Tell us, Hannibal,” Robert began as he sat again, forcing the words out like splinters, “How did you and Will Graham meet?” 

…how had the rest of these couples met? Through balls, thought Will, through charity events and other opportunities to peacock. Through networking perhaps, he thought as he looked around the table. Surely the beasts sought each other out; blood called to blood. And how did they court? Hannibal had promised to woo him in the gardens of his childhood—would that be an event of blood, too? Did the cannibals present each other with the carcasses of man and paint each other with gore and bile?

A procession of bloody images marched through his mind; Will felt panic surging in his belly, and cast his mind out like an anchor to cling to the notes of Hannibal’s voice. 

“Surprisingly, through work.” A cordial smile was stuck on Hannibal’s face as he addressed his uncle. The other wendigos seemed content to focus their attention on their cousin, leaving Will free to nervously pick at his meal. “I was asked to consult on a case for the FBI. Will is one of their most talented profilers—he was my partner.” Briefly, the wendigos’ gazes flit to him, and swiftly they darted away. 

Will realized then how content they would be to let Hannibal speak for him; it was be better for them all, he thought, if he played the role of the quiet boyfriend. They could titter away after dinner, gossiping about the tidbits of information that Hannibal provided, shoving a new identity onto him. _Awfully quiet, isn’t he?_ he could hear one of them say. The others would nod, and nod, and nod. _Surprised that Hannibal would go for someone like him,_ another would sneer. The others would nod, and nod, and nod. It would be better for them all if he sat there, silent and still. _Gossipy,_ Hannibal had said. He could see now, gazing out at the cold, sharp stares of his cousins, why Hannibal did not care for his family.

_I hope you rattle them._

Panic gave way to anger, and then—

“It was a serial murder case,” Will blurted suddenly. All of these cold stares jerked back to him and Hannibal, sitting at his side, turned his head, his smile quirking into something playful, something knowing. “With cannibalism, appropriately.” 

Robert tensed. “It wasn’t—?”

“No, Robert,” Hannibal soothed, “It wasn’t one of ours or theirs.” 

Will wasn’t quite sure who ‘they’ were—hadn’t Hannibal mentioned other shapeshifters, other magic?—but he certainly had the Lecters’ attention now, their fearful, cold eyes. “He may have been hunting them, though. Hunting them, or trying to become them.” Even the outspoken child had fallen silent, his mouth stretched wide in a gap-toothed grin of excitement. Robert’s face was stormy, and his glare shifted between his nephew and his human companion. “He killed young girls and ate them.”

“There were Algonquian relics in his house, and black antlers,” supplemented Hannibal, happy to feed into his lover’s needling. 

Will was about to continue, about to weave the story into something sharp, something pointed, when a low and crackling growl filled the room. The tension broke like ceramics, and the wendigos looked down again, pushing down their nervous curiosity with bites of food. Robert’s teeth were bared in rage at his nephew, his silverware discarded onto his plate. “Was it you who were not careful then, Hannibal?” he snarled, “Or them?”

Hannibal’s smile dropped to grimness. “I assure you, Robert—“

“This is why I can’t stand for you all gallivanting all over the globe,” the eldest wendigo seethed. “Harder to keep an eye on you and all of your foolishness.” He stared first at Hannibal, then at the man whose child had spoken earlier. James Barbaro-Lecter frowned and pretended to busy himself with cutting up his son’s food for him. Will simply tuned out Robert’s anger, allowing his head to fill with static. He was used to listening to coworkers get berated, practiced in ignorance—the FBI did not coddle.

Calm as always, Hannibal continued: “I assure you, Robert, that it was not my hunting that brought attention to our kind. Besides, the Americans are different enough that it would be difficult to connect me to them. We have our own worlds, Robert, our own burdens.”

“They’re similar enough that attention drawn to them is attention drawn to us.” 

“Robert,” Murasaki suddenly said urgently, laying one of her hands on his wrist, “You have your own problems to worry about. Let the Americans care for their own.” 

Will elected to ask Hannibal about these Americans later. Looking to the man now, he received an apologetic smile, one that said not to worry, that this happened frequently. One that said, consequentially, that arguments would mark their time here, that Hannibal was not exaggerating when he said he didn’t care for his family, that Will must either stick to his guns, or keep them holstered.

Robert pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed a stormy sigh. A thick vein was beginning to bulge out from his temple. “How did Will Graham learn of your affliction, Hannibal?” 

_How did Will Graham learn of your affliction, Hannibal?_ The words needled him; was he doomed to weeks of being spoken over, spoken about, seen not in the forefront, but in the background? Though he tried to suppress it—he knew that speaking again would not help, would only make the table more heated—Will felt red-hot anger rising up his throat again and spilling into words. “Through work, again. No—I didn’t discover him. He protected me on a dangerous mission.”

“Charming,” laughed another wendigo from down the table. Darius had wild curls to rival Will’s own and a cruel glint to his eye; his lips were quirked in a sneer as he regarded his cousin and his new partner. Snidely he continued, “Because the life of one human is worth getting caught and mounted on someone’s wall.”

The hush that fell over the room could have been plated and served as dessert. The last trace of Hannibal’s wry smile dropped from his face to be replaced by something cold and empty, a frightening, blank stare that made a shiver run down Will’s spine. At Robert’s side, Murasaki slid her gaze up to stare first at Darius, then at Will, who was struck by how old the woman looked suddenly. 

Though Hannibal’s stare was cold enough to display his displeasure with his wild-haired cousin, Will found that he couldn’t let the insult slide. “Well,” he said, lifting his glass to his lips and peering at Darius from over the rim, “It’s a good thing that Hannibal isn’t stupid enough to even have to _worry_ about getting shot and stuffed, then.” 

“Will—“ warned Hannibal. Warily he eyed his cousin, whose sneer stretched wider as he snapped,

“What was it that attracted you to him, Hannibal? Tell us, I’m _curious_. After Robert introduces you to all of the nobility of Europe who have the gift, you settle on _meat_.” 

Murmurs bubbled up from the rest of the table now as they turned to each other, their words whispered behind raised hands—

_”What happened to that English girl? She was studying to be a doctor. What about the Russian? What about that lovely Hungarian girl, the dancer?”_

\--and suddenly Will was overwhelmed by the waves of their disdain; suddenly he was acutely aware of how they viewed him as trash, as peasantry, as something as far beneath them as a fly, as a human, as—

Meat.

“FBI,” he heard one whisper at the other end of the table. “That’s dirty work, isn’t it?” 

Something in him strained, and groaned, and snapped. And right when Will was about to let his rage bubble out, and right when Hannibal grabbed his knee beneath the table to ground him, to warn him, Robert slammed his fork down on the table.

Silence. Will had never heard such sudden silence. 

“ _Enough,_ ” snarled Robert. “I am stopping this before it continues. I did not invite you all here to bicker. I did not invite you here to needle one another. That goes for you—,“ his level, icy stare settled on Will, “—but especially for the rest of you. There is business to be taken care of.”

With gloomy faces the wendigos went back to eating, filling their mouths with meat and wine so they couldn’t protest, so they could ignore how the tension vibrated around them. Robert’s word was final, and none at the table would seek to spurn it. Darius stared at Hannibal and Will over the top of his glass, regarding his cousin with stinging disdain; the man almost seemed to radiate pity. Will met his gaze as long as he could before his nerves begged with him to look away.

At last, James, whose child had unknowingly ignited the licking flame of tension, turned to Will and said, “Well, never mind what the rest of them think. I’m curious about your work, Mr. Graham. FBI, you said?”

Hannibal rubbed a gentle circle onto the cap of Will’s knee. “Yes, I’ve been there for a few years now.”

“Do you do forensic work at all?”

“Not really—I can if I need to, but I work on the behavioral side of things. I teach as well.”

“We’ll have to compare notes,” the woman at James’ side, his wife, said dryly. “I teach introductory biology classes at a few universities near our worksite. Most of the students mean so well, but sometimes arriving at the university fills their head with rocks, doesn’t it?” 

Will smiled at that, and Hannibal leaned closer to explain, “James and Zuri research lion populations in Kenya.”

“I’d like to say it’s rewarding, but it’s typically just depressing,” sighed James. 

“You said the same thing about teaching,” Zuri laughed. 

“Do you find your work rewarding though, Will?” James asked, running his fingers along the stem of his wineglass.

Will shrugged. “It’s rewarding when I save lives. It’s not when I don’t. It’s…it wasn’t good for me. It was rewarding sometimes, but it was also taxing.”

The “was” was obvious and hung heavy in the air, but James merely bobbed his head attentively, his magpie-bright eyes trained on the human. Sharp as they were, his eyes held no hostility, merely curiosity. 

“Will has an empathy disorder,” Hannibal added, hand spreading on Will’s knee now and applying a firm, even pressure. “It helped his talents as a profiler, but it also had its tolls. And that’s why I brought him with me—to take a break from work and carnage.”

It was not expressed, but the question of why Hannibal would bring him into a den of beasts to escape blood and gore hung as delicate as spider-web from the lips of the _raginio tie_. Wisely they said nothing; even Darius bobbed his head along with his cousins, though his lips were parted in a smile as though he were about to burst into laughter. In silence the shapeshifters finished their meals, their gazes flitting from the faces of their peers, to their patriarch, to the two humans that sat at their table, one familiar, the other already slightly abhorred. 

Will could not help but feel mollified by their silence; his anger had fled deeply back into his mind. Once again, fear took its place, insidious and cloying. This would be how the next few weeks would be, he thought. Anger would lead to fear, and his fear would lead to rage, and he would be forced to stew in it. He spent the rest of the meal with Hannibal’s thumb massaging soothing patterns onto his kneecap and his thoughts running haywire around his head. 

As the servants began to take away their plates and the last of the wendigos left the table, Robert turned to address Hannibal and Will. “Did Kitty show you to your quarters?”

“Not yet, sir.” The girl entered the room in a flurry of skirts, her bright smile strange at the somber table. “I figured I would wait until you all finished baring your teeth before I tried to pull them away.” 

Robert sighed and shook his head as he folded his napkin into a neat square. “There’s a reason I don’t normally invite you lot here all together, Hannibal.”

“So why did you, then?”

“Business,” the elder wendigo replied curtly as he stood from his seat, lifting the last bit of his wine to his lips. 

“Trouble?”

Robert sighed, his face sagging with weariness. “No, just business. Go with Kitty now; she’ll show you your room.” And then he took his wife’s hand as she rose from her seat, and the pair of them slipped off into some dark room of the house. Any conversations, whether they pertained to business or trouble, would have to wait until the patriarchs migraine had throbbed itself to a muted ache. 

“Well,” said Kitty, her hands settling on her hips. She jerked her head in the direction of the door and led the men through a sitting room painted in rich yellows and back out into the foyer. Up the stairs they went, past paintings and sculptures and crossed antlers mounted on walls. They turned into a hallway with many open doors; when Will glanced into the bright rooms, he saw fireplaces, towering bookshelves, and the young Peto balanced on James’ lap as the man rubbed something into the top of the boy’s scalp. What a strange world he had walked into. Will was not used to wealth and splendor, and he was hardly used to beasts. At least, he thought, it would be hard to worry about Jack Crawford and the FBI when he was so focused on watching the teeth of those who surrounded him.

They turned into another wing and Kitty led them to the end of the hallway, where a set of double doors were propped open. “Here we are. Your bags are at the foot of the bed—give us a holler if you need anything.” Hannibal and Will nodded and smiled, and then stepped into the room that would house them for the next few weeks. 

A wave of heat immediately hit them as they entered; a fireplace was nestled into one of the walls, the flames busy lapping at a trio of logs. The room was dark and warm, a nest, a womb that was draped in bloody reds and luxurious, glittering blacks. A large four poster bed sat in the middle of the room, piled invitingly with pillows and blankets and lined with drapes meant to block out the light. Scattered on tables around the room were vases of winter-blooming flowers, their delicate whites and purples soft and vulnerable against the shadowed crimson of the room. Perhaps most starkly out of place, though, was a large print of Ruben’s _Leda and the Swan_ , which was framed in gold and hung tastefully above a pair of parlor chairs. Hannibal smiled when he saw the painting and went over to look at it more closely.

“This seems like a more appropriate setting for this painting than the dining room,” said Will dryly as he went to join his partner. 

“I admit, this is where my fascination with the story came from. I came across it when I was very young; it was my first brush with the erotic. My father scolded me for staring at it.” 

“Classier than hiding Playboys under your mattress.” 

“Did you do that?” Hannibal laughed and turned to face Will, his face softening suddenly. He took one of Will’s hands and pressed it between his own. “Dinner was unpleasant. I’m sorry.”

“Being here makes me a little nervous,” Will admitted, “But part of that’s my own fault. I just…I want to stand as my own person, not as your accessory. I think that they’d all be happy to see my as your shadow.”

“They would. They will. I’m glad you let your tongue loose.” Hannibal smiled crookedly and lifted Will’s hand to his mouth, brushing his lips against the tips of his fingers. “They may not appreciate your fire, but I do.”

“I have issues with being talked about like I’m not in the room. Bad memories.” It had always been: _Is Graham up to this? Is Graham okay? God, Jack, doesn’t Graham look pale? He okay? He okay? Hey, is Graham okay?_

It was never: _Hey, Graham, you okay?_

“Then don’t let them do it,” Hannibal replied quite simply. “You can rattle them with your boldness, and I’ll sit back and admire your teeth.” Gently, he closed his teeth around Will’s middle finger. Hannibal bit down enough to create pressure and leave a reddened indent in the flesh, and his eyes trailed upward to swim in Will’s blue depths. 

A tendril of want licked hotly in Will’s gut. Pulling his hand from Hannibal’s mouth, he cupped it beneath the wendigo’s jaw, tilting his face upwards and stroking gently along the ghost of stubble that patterned his cheeks. Fiercely then he snared Hannibal’s lips with his own, his tongue immediately seeking entrance, his teeth pressed heavy against the other’s upper lip, closing now to bite. Hannibal opened with his roughness, his body tensing and coiling with savage heat, mouth hot, tongue searching. Swiftly his hand leapt up to tangle in Will’s hair and he gave those chocolate locks a tug, forcing Will to break away to gasp. 

Slowly Hannibal backed him up towards the bed. Will’s knees hit the frame and buckled, and together they fell onto the mattress. Immediately, Hannibal boxed the younger man in with his arms, his lips plunging down to claim Will’s again. There was little softness between them; when Hannibal moved to suck and lap at his neck, Will did not protest, merely groaned long and low. His nails reached for Hannibal’s back and clawed creases into his suit. 

They kissed for another minute more until they were too breathless and had to pull away from each other for a moment. Will, his lips and cheeks flushed with heat, let out a breathy laugh, gliding his fingers up and down between Hannibal’s shoulder blades. “We’re supposed to be unpacking.” 

Hannibal slid a knee upwards and pressed it teasingly against Will’s crotch. “Would you prefer to unpack?” 

“That depends,” Will rolled his body into the touch, his neck stretching back temptingly. Hannibal felt his mouth water; the desire to suck a deep bruise onto Will’s throat was overwhelming. “Will Kitty be back to check on us?”

“Perhaps,” Hannibal breathed, his gaze trailing towards the door.

“Then perhaps we should unpack our bags and not ourselves. And later we can…” He rubbed himself once more on Hannibal’s leg for emphasis.

“Later,” Hannibal agreed. “There’s no need to rush.” 

Excitement whispered in his belly. Will was loathe to untangle himself from Hannibal, but he shuddered at the idea of Kitty seeing more of either man than she surely ever wanted to. He pressed a kiss to Hannibal’s jaw as a promise and then slid off the bed. Hannibal followed, and his eyes roamed hungrily over the prone Leda as he passed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, sorry that took so long! This semester has been a little busy, but in a good way. Unfortunately I didn't have any time to write before the past week, hence the delay! 
> 
> Yay for awkward family gatherings! Writing this made me think of how Thanksgiving is coming up in almost exactly a month here. There's going to be a lot of characters in the rest of the story, so I'm working on a little list to help keep things straight (t started for my own benefit, but I figured that others might enjoy it as well). 
> 
> Thanks for reading! This story recently passed 10,000 hits, and I can't express how much that means to me. This will be a long, long journey--I hope that you all continue to stick around and enjoy the ride with me!


	17. The Coupling of Companions Carved From the Earth

XVII

Like celestial bodies, they orbited each other as they unpacked, sly looks leading to sly touches, sly touches leading to stolen kisses. Bit by bit Hannibal and Will could feel their self-control unraveling, falling from them in the serene and slow way with which leaves fall from trees. They knew that there was no rush to do what each desired; they had the entire night stretching ahead of them, promises in touches they were sworn to keep, and cloying arousal to cut through, to carve, to share.

At one point Kitty left them a tray of cookies and tea, murmuring something about how their meal had been cut short. She left as silently as she had entered, the whistle of her skirts the only herald of her departure. The men folded their clothes and drank their tea, letting the warmth spread through their veins and mix with the heat settling low in their guts, smiling as the sensation spread to their fingers and toes. 

Though neither expressed it aloud, they both were a little embarrassed by their excitement. It all felt a little boyish, their coy looks shot across the room, their love notes written in silence and their tension carved from still air. Both recalled their first encounters, fumbling experiences in dormitory beds, experiences where pleasure came swiftly and surely, white-hot heat racing through gangly bodies. They felt like virgins again in each other’s presence, for both realized that this would be different. This was the coupling of something greater than lovers; this was the coupling of companions carved from the earth, beings whose souls had existed and mixed long before their bodies had. 

Will nearly laughed aloud a few times when he considered the whole situation. A month ago, he would’ve been mortified at the thought of sleeping with his psychiatrist and coworker. Now, though, the entire thing felt so natural; he could not think of a future where Hannibal was not there. He had wondered that first night of deeply-drank kisses if he and Hannibal would be able to survive separation. He imagined they would not. _He_ certainly would not; it had been years since he had felt safe, but now, even in this world of teeth and beasts, nothing daunted him, for he knew that Hannibal could swallow enough fear for the both of them. They were well-matched in that way.

He supposed that the only thing left to fear as the possibility of screwing this up; the thought had admittedly crossed his mind frequently since he and Hannibal had professed their feelings for each other in Hannibal’s study. His past relationships had been failures, and there was little stopping this one from winding up like the others. But he couldn’t dwell on that now, not when Hannibal was walking over to the door, turning the lock with a click, not when he was lowering some of the lights of the room and walking towards Will with a look of pure and heated adoration on his face. Simmering in Hannibal’s eyes was the passion that Will had seen reflected in the swan’s gaze as it fucked into Leda, though Will was also pleased to see the animal heat tempered by something as sweet as the sugar stirred into their tea. Staring into Hannibal’s eyes made Will feel infinitely powerful. He imagined in that moment that Hannibal might do anything for him, if only he asked sweetly. He parted his lips a fraction as Hannibal closed the space between them, a soft a shuddering gasp slipping from his throat as the other closed his hands around his biceps and gently danced his fingers along the muscle, the heat from their skin mingling, spilling.

This felt right.

It only took a moment for them to meet in the middle, Hannibal’s head bowing so that he could reverently snare the other’s lips with his own. A hand slid up from Will’s arm to cup his face so that they could deepen the kiss; Hannibal’s lips spread hot and hungry against the other’s, and his eyes slipped shut as his body prickled to life. It was strangely appropriate, the wendigo thought distantly as his fingers reached for the messy nape of Will’s hair, that they were doing this for the first time in his childhood home, in the home he was due to inherit.

It felt as if they were consummating a marriage.

Hungry things, their bodies pressed against each other, each seeking the other’s warmth. Will’s hands snaked from Hannibal’s hips to the small of his back and upward, sliding up the panes of muscle. His nails dragged along the lines of the shapeshifter’s back and Hannibal shuddered involuntarily, his lips falling from Will’s to pant a quivering breath against his cheek. He shifted their waists to press the stirring hardness of his cock against Will’s own and the other laughed breathily, his hand trailing downwards again to press their hips together and let Hannibal feel his own arousal. “It’s been a while,” Will said almost bashfully, gently grinding his erection against the others. Hannibal thought that the smile curving his lips perfectly matched the rosy blush painting his cheeks, and he felt his mouth water hungrily at the site of Will so undone, so virginal. 

“It has been for me as well,” he reassured him. Chastely he pressed his lips against the others. “We’ll go slow.” His pianist’s fingers began to slide out the buttons of Will’s shirt and parted the navy material to press against his pale chest. His spread his hand across his breast, surprised to find that the skin there was smooth and hairless, though taut with toned muscle. 

Will untucked his shirt from his pants and shrugged it from his shoulders, laughing softly again. “God, I don’t think I’ve fucked another guy since I was getting my degree. _That_ kind of long.” 

Hannibal too chuckled and glided his fingers down to the trail of hair that bristled on Will’s belly. “We’ll go especially slow, then. Do you have a preference as to..?” Vaguely, Hannibal gestured towards the bed. 

Will’s lips parted in thought, his eyes hooding as he realized what Hannibal was asking. Unbuttoning Hannibal’s shirt and pulling it off his frame, he shrugged. “Either, I guess.” A mischievous smile spread across his face; standing on his tip-toes, he pressed his lips to Hannibal’s ear and murmured, “But right now, I’d really like you to fuck me.” 

A savage snarl tore its way from Hannibal’s throat; suddenly, Will was being lifted by two strong hands that clawed tight enough into his thighs that his breath hitched in pain. He wrapped his legs around Hannibal’s torso as the man carried him to the bed, laughing in delight at the power he held over the other. Together they fell, Hannibal trapping Will’s body in the cage of his arms, pinning the man down with a firm, biting kiss when he tried to squirm up to touch his lips with trembling fingers. Breathy little noises escaped Will as Hannibal assaulted his lips and neck with deep, greedy kisses and little nips of teeth. He had never seen the man so undone, and found his passion to be contagious. Will couldn’t remember a time when he had felt so wanted by another person.

As Hannibal made quick work of both of their pants, Will carded his fingers through the hair on his chest and explored the contours of his body. He was unsurprised to find that the man was still well-muscled; Hannibal was truly a man in his prime, and his age was only betrayed by the streaks of silver in his chest hair. 

The pair disentangled for a moment to toss the last of their clothes to the floor. Completely bare, they took the time to survey one another unabashedly, hungry eyes roaming over aching bodies, glancing at the shining tips of their leaking cocks. Will reached out and took Hannibal in his hand. The man was thick and uncut; Will felt a shudder of want ripple through his body as he wrapped his fingers around the base to feel the full girth of the man in his hand. Hannibal’s eyes slipped shut as Will ran his fingers up and down the shaft, toying with the foreskin and gathering some of the precum oozing from the slit with his thumb. Lifting his hand to his lips, Will poked his tongue out to taste the sticky fluid, his eyes rolling up to meet Hannibal’s hooded gaze. The wendigo parted his lips and shuddered as if in rapture.

Gently, Hannibal pressed Will back into the mattress. With a swivel of his hips he adjusted so that their cocks rubbed together as they moved, and both men groaned softly at the prickles of arousal that danced through their bellies as they ground their shafts together. 

“God, you feel good,” Will hissed, his hands snaking up to claw at Hannibal’s shoulders. “I’m going to come if you keep that up.”

“Excited,” the other murmured into his neck, the word teasing and soft. 

“I told you, s’been a while, oh!” His words ended in a moan when Hannibal took their cocks into his hand and rubbed the heads together. Will’s hand flew up to his mouth to stifle the sounds he was making, his legs squirming in pleasure.

Hannibal laughed, releasing them both and reaching for the bedside table. “Don’t worry,” he said as he pulled a bottle of lube from the drawer (Will had cast him a wry little look when he had put it there earlier, his lips splitting in a grin). “No one can hear us. Trust me,” he chuckled, “In all of my years living in this castle, I never heard anything that I wasn’t supposed to.” His lips returned briefly to Will’s neck as he flipped the cap of the bottle and poured a dollop of the lube on his fingers. “Don’t silence yourself,” he said, reaching down to brush his cold digits against Will’s entrance, “I want to hear you.” 

Will’s lips parted against the back of his hand as Hannibal’s fingers circled his hole, and another moan slipped from him as the man pressed two fingers inside. He felt full, but not uncomfortably so; Will hadn’t had a male partner in many, many years, but that hadn’t meant that he had abstained from penetrating himself altogether. After a few minutes of Hannibal’s gentle ministrations, he nodded shakily, encouraging the other to continue. Hannibal carefully pressed another finger in and began to rub the pad of one against Will’s prostate, prompting a shuddering keen to rise from the man. The wendigo’s free hand fell to his cock at the noise, pumping it once, relishing in the slide of the foreskin against his head. Arousal gnawed insistently in his belly, and he squeezed the base of his shaft once to ward it off. It would be a shame to end this night before it had truly begun.

Watching Will unravel beneath him, Hannibal thought that it wasn’t surprising that the man was a vocal partner, all deep moans and soft _ah-ah-ah_ ’s as Hannibal rubbed something sweet inside of him. Will held himself together so tightly all day, wrapping his emotions in steel chain and barbing his words with envenomed spikes. It made sense that he let that all fall away in the bedroom especially, Hannibal thought, if his prerequisite for attraction was a feeling of protection. For a moment he stared at that man with deep love, tracing the contours of his parted lips, admiring the flutter of his lashes as Hannibal curled his fingers within him. A layer of sweat shone on his skin; bending, Hannibal sucked in a greedy whiff of Will’s natural scent, grunting at the cocktail of aromas that he found there. Beneath the layer of salt and cheap cologne was a scent that was distinctly Will’s; the animal hindbrain that prowled his conscience was pleased with the smell, delighted that Will was a healthy mate, a mate fit for him. It would be easy, Hannibal thought, mouthing at Will’s pulse point, to let that animal drive take over.

Another night, perhaps. 

He thought too of Will’s potential as a more dominant lover, of the rumbling moans he would utter as he drove into the body beneath him. The thought of Will so undone, so in control, caused Hannibal’s entire body to shudder, and he pressed his teeth to Will’s jugular as if he could diffuse his pleasure through the man’s skin. The hand that lolled near Will’s face flew up to tangle in Hannibal’s hair, pressing him tighter to his neck. 

Another night, another night. They had nothing but nights yawning before them in a star-tinged succession. 

After a few minutes of preparation Will gently tugged on Hannibal’s hair. “Please, I’m ready.” God, he already felt overstimulated and shaky, his entire body taut and trembling with years of pent-up desire. He had forgotten how good sex was, how mind-numbing fucking could be. Hannibal’s fingers brushed once more against his prostate and he felt his thoughts go to static. Safe. God, he felt safe, and wanted, and ravenously desired; he felt better than he had in years. Hannibal was pushing his legs up now as one hand spread lube along his cock. Now the blunt head was pressing up against his hole, spreading precum and lubrication across the puckered skin; it rolled in rivulets down to his balls, drawn tight and full against his body. Will clenched his teeth as Hannibal rocked forward and he felt the swell of his cockhead press into him, passing the tight ring of muscle and slowly pushing deeper. Hannibal’s gaze had fallen to watch the pornographic slide of his cock into the man, and he shuddered when he was fully sheathed in the other, his balls pressed snugly against the other’s ass. Will spread his legs wider as though it might alleviate the pressure, and groaned when the motion only seemed to pull Hannibal deeper into him. 

“You’re so big, christ.” He ran his hands down Hannibal’s chest, snagging his fingers in his curls and brushing his thumbs against his nipples. “Thick,” he shivered as Hannibal began to slowly rock inside him. 

It doesn’t take long for them to establish a rhythm, the muscles of Hannibal’s back rippling as he thrust into the man with increasing vigor. The small of his back hollowed with every pump and Will took a great delight in hooking his legs around his body so that his feet could rest in the dip and press him deeper with every thrust in. The sensation was entirely too much and somehow not enough; Will shifted his hip up to change the angle, and nearly shouted when the change pressed Hannibal’s cock up against his prostate. His hands jumped down to Hannibal’s hips and his fingers pressed into the swell of his ass to roughly knead at the flexing muscle. 

“Brave boy,” Hannibal panted, his head falling to rest against Will’s pulse point. “Remarkable boy, you have no idea what you do to me. I fear that I’ll never leave this bed again because of you.”

Will made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a moan at the words. His hands flew up to tangle in Hannibal’s disheveled locks. “Harder,” he breathed. The other bared his teeth against his neck and disentangled from his embrace, reaching up to wrap his hands around the carved headboard of the bed. The sounds of their coupling became obscene as Hannibal began to rut into Will, the slap of skin on skin percussive and pornographic in the dark space. Each hard thrust pushed Will up the bed, and he had to wrap his fingers into the sheets to avoid being pressed into the pillows. Soft, animal grunts were tugged from Hannibal’s chest each time he rut into the man, his eyes slipping shut and his mouth slipping open to pant and rasp his pleasure. Searing heat pooled in Will’s belly, only amplified by the stinging slap of Hannibal’s hips against his own and the thump of the headboard striking the wall.

“Hannibal, I—“ His voice cut off with a particularly brutal thrust, one hand scrabbling up to claw at Hannibal’s back. The wendigo’s eyes snapped open at his name, and Will shivered when he saw the heat that curled hungrily in that pinning gaze. Part of him knew, in that moment, that this was Hannibal restraining himself; this bout of fucking, despite the sharp snap of Hannibal’s hips, despite the wet squelch of his cock pumping in and out of him, was tame compared to what Hannibal was capable of. He wanted to see Hannibal unravel completely. He wanted to let the man ravage him. 

Another night, he thought again, for he could feel the pulsing of his cock growing unbearable, the heat of their bodies becoming stifling. As if he had read his mind, Hannibal reached down to grab Will’s cock and began to jack the man off, using his precum to slick the way. The shapeshifter’s own rhythm was faltering, the evenness of it stuttering to ragged, jerking thrusts. In unison their breaths and grunts and deep moans of pleasure rose as both men chased their end. 

With a low growl, Hannibal pressed deeply into the other, his balls grinding against the swell of Will’s ass. Will felt them twitch and pulse as Hannibal pumped ropes of thick seed into his body, his heavy cock throbbing, his hips jerking weakly to work his load deeper. The sensation of Hannibal’s cum striping his insides toppled Will over the edge and he came with a groan, coating his belly and chest with the sticky white fluid. 

It took a minute for them to recover. Shivering, they stared at each other, heated stares turning to sleepy gazes that oozed not branding lust, but bone-deep contentment. Hannibal dropped to lay atop Will, his body trembling, and Will’s cum smeared hot between them, drying tacky on their skin. For a moment they sat in silence save for their heaving breaths. Will’s hand carded through Hannibal’s bangs.

When both had regained their breath, Hannibal slipped free from Will with a grunt and rolled over to his side. Standing from the bed with a stretch, he wandered over to their pile of discarded clothes to fish his pants from the mess and then walked out to the bathroom. He returned carrying a damp washcloth, and he climbed back onto the bed and began to gently clean the dried semen off of his and Will’s stomachs. When the last of the tacky fluid was gone, he moved on to Will’s thighs, rubbing off the cum that had leaked onto his legs. 

Will was overwhelmed by the emotion he felt towards the man in that moment, triggered by the simple gesture of being cleaned, of being cared for. “You make me feel so good,” Will whispered as Hannibal dumped the rag into a wicker laundry basket tucked into one of the corners of the room. 

Hannibal’s voice was low and warm. “ _Good_.” Crawling back into bed, he took Will in his arms and adjusted the man so that they were spooning. Will nestled back into his warmth with a sigh. Hannibal was not surprised when he drifted off to sleep, and worshipped the even rush of Will’s breaths as the younger man slipped into unconsciousness, his well-fucked figure melting blissfully into the mattress. 

When he was sure that Will was soundly asleep, Hannibal carefully untangled himself from his lover and stood from the bed. After gathering up the rest of his clothes, redressing, and stopping by the mirror to fix his mussed hair, he opened the door and walked out into the dark and empty hallway. The door closed behind him with a quiet _click_ , and the sleeper was none the wiser to his departure.

The house was eerie and dark this late at night, but Hannibal trusted his feet to take him to Robert. Retracing the memories of a younger self, he wandered through the tangle of corridors until he came to the only room where a light still shone. 

The dark hall was momentarily illuminated as he eased open the door, but the light was soon swallowed greedily by the shadows on the walls. The house slept and breathed and snored, none the wiser to lust, none the wiser to sneaking feet that pulled the door shut with the whine of a hinge and the squeak of a lock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, this is my first time writing smut like this /sweats/ Hopefully it was alright! Feedback is always appreciated in all aspects of my writing, so let me know if there's anything that just didn't seem...quite right. 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading, kudoing, and commenting! To all of my fellow students, good luck on your finals!


	18. Sweat, Sex, and the Thought of Growing Old

XVIII

The scent of sex and sweat greeted Robert before the tap of Hannibal’s footsteps did. The eldest of the wendigos steeled himself with a generous gulp of brandy as the door to the study creaked open and then shut with the crisp click of a lock sliding home, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as the alcohol streaked a hot line down the back of his throat. Into the dimly lit room walked Hannibal looking smug as a cat, dressed only in a slightly wrinkled pair of pants and a dress shirt the color of wine.

Robert rose from his chair with a disgusted shake of his head as Hannibal walked towards the fireplace, and fetched his nephew a snifter of brandy, muttering softly in Lithuanian as he topped his own glass off. “God,” he said, his nose wrinkling in distaste and his scowl shadowed by the fire, “You could have at least showered. Were you raised in a barn?”

Hannibal accepted the drink with a wry smile. “Apologies. It appears we got a little carried away.”

“Jesus.” God, he reeked of semen and pheromones. 

“I would have showered, but I was worried you would already be in bed, uncle.”

“Me? Never.” Robert snorted. He suspected that Hannibal simply wanted to wear his scent like a badge of pride; it was animal posturing, the pleasures of younger beasts than he who thought they had something to prove. Robert had outgrown such behavior long ago. “The first of your cousins got here two weeks ago, and I have not been able to chase the squeaking of bedsprings from my mind since.” Shaking his head again, he motioned for Hannibal to sit, setting his own drink down on the side table and falling back into his claw-foot chair. Rancid scent aside, he was pleased to see the buck. “I’m glad that you came to visit me. We have much to discuss.”

“Yes,” Hannibal agreed, “We do.”

Hannibal cast his gaze around the study as he sat, recognition flickering in his eyes. The room used to be his father’s; Robert wondered if he took any comfort in the fact that that it had changed little since his childhood. The shelves, of course, were filled with different books, tomes that detailed archaeological oddities, the flux of artistic styles, Robert’s own journals and memoirs. Some of the baubles on the shelf had changed, though many had been collected by the elder Hannibal in his own travels. Still above the mantle of the fireplace were Antonius Lecter’s crossed antlers, polished and shiny, a reminder of their roots. Still perched on a shelf was a photograph of Count Hannibal the Seventh and his children, looking grim as they stared at the photographer. 

“Familiar space?” Robert ventured hesitantly. His stare was guarded; the eldest of the wendigos wasn’t sure how returning home might affect Hannibal, and he was wary of poking something sore in the man. 

After a moment, Hannibal commented, “It looks much the same.”

“Yes, your father had good taste. Most of what’s in here was his.” Robert paused. “Some of his possessions are boxed up, if you’d like to take a look.” 

“Later.”

“Of course.” They fell silent for a moment, sipping at their drinks and listening to the purr of the fire as it lapped at the logs. It was Robert who spoke first again, wetting his lips before daring to break the mourning silence. “I suppose I have to begin by scolding you. Why didn’t you tell me that you were bringing the human?”

“Will.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were bringing Will, Hannibal?” It wasn’t an unwelcome surprise, he supposed; he had long been hoping that Hannibal would find someone to settle down with, though he had admittedly hoped that their person might be one of their own kind. He watched Hannibal consider his words and tilt his brandy back and forth in the glass snifter. 

“I didn’t know that I was until days before I was leaving. He’s a troubled man. It pained me to leave him alone, especially when I was unsure of how long I would be here.”

“Hm. You’ll have to be careful,” Robert warned. “Things have changed. Many of your cousins are beginning to look less fondly on marriages between _raginio tie_ and humans.” Robert, of course, had no qualms about mating humans, but he knew that Hannibal’s cousins would be less welcoming to another human nosing about their business. 

“Have they been giving you trouble, uncle?”

“They wouldn’t dare.” Robert feared that Murasaki would teach them a lesson before he could even lift a claw. “I think they fear her and me a little—it pleases me. But you…they just find you odd, Hannibal. You just added fuel to their fire.”

“I’m aware.”

Robert snorted. “Darius and Leonard despise you. The twins—Marina and Marcella, you haven’t seen them in quite a while—only like you because Darius does not. The rest are neutral at best, save for James and Zuri. They’d sing your praises all day.”

“ _I’m aware._ ” 

Robert’s deep baritone slipped into a wavering growl. “Mind your tongue. You’re not my better yet.” Hannibal’s gaze fell, both chagrined and irritated, and Robert felt a great pride that he was able to cow the young buck still. “I’m leaving you all to establish the pecking order. You’re all young—you can take a few bruises if that’s what it comes to.”

And indeed, Robert realized, they _were_ young, unlike himself. Each of the shapeshifters gathered here was in the prime of their life; even he was still enjoying his better years despite the fact that he was nearly a century old. The wendigos age differently than human, and enjoy a lifespan of nearly 150 years. As children, they nurse until age 4, and hit puberty late compared to the average human. Though developed by their late teens, wendigos are not sexually viable until their early twenties; it is then that a female wendigo will experience her first heat and be welcomed into the adult echelons of society. Male wendigos, on the other hand, are not considered adults until about the age of 25. From ages 30 to their early 100’s, the wendigos age slowly, and maintain a youthful appearance. These are the reproductive years, the years when an alpha of their kind will have the most sway, the years when they can still hunt efficiently and enjoy all of the pleasures of life. It is not until about age 110 that their bodies begin to decay and fail, and most die of natural causes after a few decades of aging. An alpha will have given up his mantle by then. By then, their children will have grown.

Robert knew that he would have to transfer his own authority soon; in only a few years, the others would stop respecting him. Wendigos did not refer to themselves as pack animals, nor did they refer to the leader as an alpha, but the dynamic was the same, a cycle of power based on tooth and claw. They who led the clan was the authority on all matters. Robert was the only beast who could call all of his blood together and have them listen; he was the only man who could settle their squabbles, who could end them himself with mere words. Each of the wendigos respected him, albeit begrudgingly, and in return he protected them as best he could. An alpha looked out for his own, after all; he flexed his claws when hard decisions had to be made, and did not balk in the face of fear and snarling teeth. Unfortunately this called for a younger body than the one he possessed, one that wouldn’t buckle in a fight. Humming a thoughtful note, he took another sip of his drink. 

“I hope that you don’t disappoint me,” Robert said, swallowing and tracing his thumb around the damp lip of his snifter. 

“Disappoint you?” 

“I expect you to come out on top when push comes to shove.” 

He watched as Hannibal let those words sink in, chewed them in his mind like a dog with a bone. The boy was clever; he didn’t need Robert to spell out his desires to him. “This isn’t nepotism, is it uncle?” he said at last, slowly. 

“No. Well—perhaps. I know you best, and I trust your judgement. The others…” Robert rolled his glass against the palm of his hand and tried to pick his words wisely. “They are not always very level headed. You frighten me occasionally with your calmness. I fear there’s something lurking beneath your surface.” He stared at his nephew steadily now, his gaze stony, empty of affection. Hannibal met his eyes for a moment and then glanced at the withering embers falling from the log. The silence between them was electric. “Maybe I’m wrong,” Robert said airily. “I hope I am. Regardless, you are the best suited for the position. With everything that has been happening as of late, I trust you the most.” 

Silence for a moment. Then, setting his glass down, Hannibal turned in the chair to face his uncle. “I believe we’ve now arrived at the true topic of discussion for this evening.” 

“Indeed.” 

“You did not gather us here to celebrate the holidays, then.” 

"No.” Robert stared at the crossed antlers of Antonius. His mouth was drawn in a thin, pale line, his square face stony and blank. Hannibal gazed at him curiously, head cocked a fraction, eyes bright with a strange knowing that Robert tried to ignore. “Jadvyga has been…active,” he continued, picking his words carefully from his tongue, turning them over and over in careful thought. “Chiyoh says that she has been frequenting the town more and more, leaning over the counters of bakeries, bars, tea shops, her lips twisting in cold smiles. Chiyoh has kept her distance, so she doesn’t know what it’s about.” He paused. “But I have my guesses, of course. You know how she is. You, out of any of those gathered here, know how she is.” 

He wondered if painful, wailing memories were pushing at the walls of Hannibal’s mind now. Suddenly Robert could smell the metallic tang of blood, could hear a scream, a shot… 

“I won’t have us be caught off guard again,” Robert continued abruptly, as if the force of his words might chase the memories away. Bright in his mind now was the image of little Mischa, her black body twisted in the snow, her red blood staining the landscape like spilled holy wine. He lifted his glass again so that the alcohol would warm his chilled thoughts. On his back he could feel the phantom coldness of Hannibal’s tears from when the young buck had smeared them across his shoulder blade as Robert carried them far, far away from the bloody snow and deep, deep into the lovely woods. 

"Do you hope to intimidate her by gathering us all here?” Hannibal asked. 

“No. It’ll only rile her further. Did the people of the village give you a warm welcome when you passed through?” Hannibal shook his head. “I didn’t think so.” Robert sipped at his drink. “I’m preparing for the worst.” 

“You’re preparing for blood.” 

Robert did not reply. 

“Have you told the others?” Hannibal’s tone was urgent now. “Many of the children are here. I won’t—“ His lip lifted to bare a row of neat, white teeth. Robert regarded his bared incisors coldly, his own mouth set in a scowl. “I won’t have them go through what I did.” 

“I won’t come to that. I told you, I’m preparing for the worst. We will negotiate with her before it comes to blood.” 

“What could she possibly want that she cannot conjure herself?” 

“You’d be surprised. She may simply want us to stop eating the villagers.” It was always difficult to say what the witch might request. Occasionally she’d ask for the bones of the dead to fuel her spells, or perhaps the blood of the living; Robert remembered once watching his hand drip blood into a little jar clutched between her bony digits. Other times she would ask for favors, which ranged from sending the children down to assist her around the house or stocking her winter stores with venison and game fowl. 

Once they had killed for her. Robert shivered. 

“Uncle,” Hannibal’s gaze was full of mirth when it slid back to pierce Robert. “If she did not want us to eat the villagers, she would not have made us how we are.” 

Robert merely grunted. “I try not to predict her actions. It’s almost as if she can crawl into your skull and pick apart your anticipations; she’ll never do what it is you want.” 

“I suppose we’ll have to keep an open mind, then.” 

“Mmm.” Finishing the last of his drink, Robert stood to take his and Hannibal’s glasses, saying, “I would advise that you inform good Will of the… _history_ here, Hannibal. I suspect that he knows some. I’m still irritated about your carelessness—don’t think that I’m not. But if he knows, then I suppose he should know it all.” 

“I would not have revealed myself if I didn’t think it was necessary, Robert.” Hannibal paused, seeming to stumble on unsaid words. “He knows the nature of the curse. He doesn’t know of what happened to my mother and father. To Mischa.” 

“It’s never necessary,” Robert replied dryly, “But regardless. I would advise that _you_ tell him your story before someone tells him _for_ you and convinces him that he is in over his head.” 

“He won’t be so cowed by the words of a beast who is trying to sell him death and blood.” 

“No,” Robert agreed, setting the glasses down on the servant’s tray with a hollow _click_. “But he might be cowed by a witch’s wrath. That’s another kind of beast entirely.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Jadvyga, you just can't help yourself! A very special thanks to everyone who helped me slog through his chapter--I'm looking at you, Sanny and Hollow. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you all have happy and safe holidays!


	19. Mischa

XIX

The soft thump of a dresser drawer sliding shut woke Will from a slumber that had swaddled him in blissful blackness and thoughtlessness. As he waded through the heavy-limbed drowsiness that muddled his senses, he listened to Hannibal’s quiet movements as the man walked around the room—likely getting dressed for the day, Will thought. It took him a minute to open his eyes, satisfied as he was to lounge in this bed with his body contentedly sore and his mind wiped clean from the artificial death of a deep sleep, but finally he mustered the willpower to hail the morning as it leaked in through the windows, and was greeted with a strange sight.

Standing before the mirror was Hannibal, wearing his wendigo skin and a suit which he kept adjusting. Will watched as he centered his tie with a claw and then stepped back to scrutinize his reflection, shaking his head at some ill-fitting stitch in the jacket that bothered him. He turned around to see how the seat of his pants fit, catching his partner’s gaze in the mirror as he did so. His mouth split in a pointed smile. “Good morning.”

“Mm, morning.” He could get used to waking up like this, warm from a good slumber, sated and serene and heavy. With a stretch, Will disentangled himself from the covers and walked over to stand by Hannibal’s side, his fingers trailing up to flatten a crease in the fabric and touch the other’s warmth. 

“You slept well,” the wendigo said, making a few final adjustments to his suit. “I apologize for not waking you earlier, but you were sleeping so soundly.” He bent down to plant a kiss on Will’s cheek. 

A little shiver ran through Will when those leather-smooth lips touched his jaw. There was something illicit about this, something thrilling and wrong about letting Hannibal kiss him when he was in that body, and yet he couldn’t find it in him to be repulsed by the beast who was staring at him so fondly right now. Hannibal, antlers or not, was still Hannibal. And when he thought of the night before, of the nights to come…

He shooed the thoughts away before they spiraled into self-indulgence. He’d mull them over later when all the lights in the house had been extinguished, when it was velvet-dark in their room.

“What time is it?” he asked instead.

“Past ten, now. There’s breakfast on the side table if you’re hungry.” A tray of scones and a dainty antique coffee warmer waited beneath the painting of Leda. Together, Hannibal and Will sat down to enjoy a late breakfast and listen to the sounds that rose from the waking estate. Dogs brayed outside, taking their morning laps around the castle. Somewhere, chickens shrieked to greet the day, and the sound was soon followed by the laughter of a child, the furious flapping of wings, then the sharp bark of one of the servants. 

Will watched as Hannibal picked a crumb off his pant leg, immaculate as always. He still cut a regal figure in his bespoke suit despite his current form; the dark colors complemented his midnight skin well, and the jacket was tailored to provide some girth to his gaunt figure. Still, it was strange to see someone who was half-beast wearing clothing, especially when he was so used to seeing the wendigo nude. “Is it normal for you to wear clothes in that body?” he asked. The only part of him that was bare were his cloven hooves. 

Hannibal glanced down at his outfit as though the thought that it was strange never occurred to him. “It is, at least around the house. They might be worn if one is walking outside as well, but they wouldn’t be worn if one was going for a hike or a hunt.”

“Like what we were doing at my house?”

“Precisely. But at dinner, yes, a wendigo would be quite naked without some sort of covering on. It’d be quite rude to eat dinner in the buff.”

“Huh.” Strange, but it made sense; the Lecter’s were still people, after all, and subject to the opinions and habits of human culture. There seemed to be many rules in the wendigos’ society that Will was sure he would never fully grasp. It was difficult to tell where animal and human life separated, but also where it blended. Their life was governed in equal measures by bestial ceremony and human politics.

“The only exception might be the children,” Hannibal noted with a bemused smile. “The younger ones have a difficult time controlling when they shift. They might get excited and sprout a hoof. There were times that my parents didn’t clothe me in fear that I would ruin my clothes by changing forms.”

Will smiled at that, imagining Hannibal tearing across the estate in a strange mismatch of bodies. He wished he could sort through Hannibal’s memories like photographs to assemble a glimpse of what he was like as a child. Was he anything like the little boy at the table last night?

“I should have warned you before we came that it’s quite normal for us to wear both skins around the house,” Hannibal continued. “It’s simply a matter of preference. Now that I’m here, the others will likely start to shift back and forth more. Don’t let them intimidate you with their teeth and claws, Will; I know they’ll try.”

Hannibal didn’t have much faith in his relatives, it would appear. Will was about to ask about the Lady Murasaki and the trials she had faced, but Hannibal was shaking his head. “I shouldn’t scare you,” he quickly added, “They’re simply bullies, and you are an easy target for them.” He paused, irritated. “Enough of this—I shouldn’t have brought it up. I thought we could go for a walk today, you and I. We could tour the estate, and I can answer any questions you may have thought of.”

“Alright,” Will replied. Hannibal’s words had caused a distinct feeling of uneasiness to curl up in his gut.

“Good.” Hannibal stacked his dish on top of Will’s and stood to bring them back to the kitchen. The china looked like a child’s tea set in his dark claws. “Bundle up, and I will meet you downstairs.”

He left the room with the crisp click of hooves. Will took his time dressing. As he pulled his pants on, he reminded himself that Hannibal would protect him, that surely he wouldn’t have brought Will with him if he thought his cousins were truly so nefarious so as to try and hurt him. Whatever their intentions were, it was all just politics, he reassured himself as he buttoned his coat; the politics of mythical beasts who had just last night enjoyed human flesh for dinner, put politics nonetheless. He was encroaching on their territory, spying on their life; of course they would be hostile towards him, as a wolf would, as a predator would. He steeled his nerve and tucked his scarf into his jacket, and then crept out the door and into the hall. 

Like the rest of the house, the halls were lavishly decorated with paintings and flowers. The dark hardwood floor was covered with a ruby red carpet with a tassel trim, and electric lights sat in gold sconces on the wall. When he arrived at the main artery of the upper floor, he peeked down the other hallways to see where they led and discovered that each one was much the same as the one he had just emerged from, and that the house was full of rooms, some of which he would no doubt never enter.

From there, the main staircase was easy to find. Hannibal and Robert were chatting at the foot of the steps; the elder Lecter had Hannibal’s suit draped tidily over his arm to bring upstairs while his nephew ventured out to the estate. They made a strange pair, the human Robert looking stoic in a plain outfit and the wendigo across from him somehow not sacrificing his regality despite his nudity. The elder wendigo glanced at Will as he descended the stairs, nodding curtly. 

“It’s pleasant out,” said Robert, adjusting the clothes on his arm. “Crisp, but not too cold. You two enjoy.” His face held an unreadable expression as he passed them to mount the stairs; not disapproval, as Will imagined, but rather a sort of concealed sadness. Will watched him for a moment as Hannibal opened the door, and then follow the wendigo outside. 

It was sunny enough out that the rays chased some of the winter’s bite away. A thick layer of snow glittered on the ground, and ice hung from buildings and glistened on the walkways, waiting to trip an unwary walker. In the distance, the skeletal trees wore their streaks of white as a soldier wears his pins. Winter suited the estate well; it draped itself around the property like a fur stole. 

As they walked out into the yard, they passed a woman on a ladder knocking icicles from the window. She glanced down at them as they passed, making sure that they weren’t beneath her, and then knocked another piece down. “Are all of the staff here women?” Will asked as he watched her send another icicle plummeting down.

“Keen eyes, Will—yes. We have only hired women since Antonius was first cursed and most of the servants left; it’s difficult to keep a staff when they’re afraid you might eat them, and harder to find a new workforce. One of the kitchen staff, MЇgle—she wasn’t afraid of Antonius at all, you might remember her from my story—began to look for young women looking to escape marriages, or the church, or for safe places to deliver bastard children. She offered them safety and good pay, and she assured them that none of them would end up on the table on her watch.” A wry smile crossed Hannibal’s face. “Our staff remains exclusively female, partially due to tradition, and partially due to the fact that we still offer a safe place for those who seek it. Many of these women bear secrets and burdens that we are happy to ignore. You should make it a point to talk with them—they each have their own unique stories, and you’ll find that they’re useful allies should you ever find yourself in a disagreement with one of my cousins. They’re adept at engineering inconveniences.” 

“I take it they all live here?” 

“Yes—there are a few servants quarters on the estate, and a few of them live in the house. There’s one over there,” he pointed to a white building that was covered in brown tendrils of dead ivy. “I believe there are two or three more elsewhere. A little ways into the woods there is another house as well that some of the retired staff live at. I remember being sent there a few times as a young boy to do chores for them,” Hannibal laughed. “That was the punishment for poor behavior.”

Will smiled at the thought of a young Hannibal having to tend to an old woman’s wishes, but something about the story unsettled him. “They’re not allowed to leave?” 

Hannibal grew quiet. “No. In exchange for safety and secrets kept, they are expected to return the favor. The people of the village know what lives here, but they do not need to know all about our lives.” 

It was a little eerie, Will thought, but were there darker alternatives? Would the Lecter’s—or the townspeople, even—flash their claws at those they thought betrayed them? He tucked the question away to be dissected later. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer right now. 

Hannibal led them to a low, long stone building that sat on the lip of the woods. “This is the stable,” he explained as he opened the door for Will. 

Inside, the building was filled with musky animal heat and the scent of hay. It was well-lit and tidy, with bales of hay and tools for cleaning and grooming tucked against walls. The wood that made up the stalls and supports were a deep mahogany, while the building itself was supported by fat cobblestones. Will guessed that there were ten or fifteen stalls situated all along the right side of the building. The door of each was intricately carved with a different design of leaves, deer, and hounds; some were marked with indents where teeth had worried at the wood, while others were chipped from when they had been kicked. 

Stretching their necks out from their stalls were a handful of black deer who eyed the pair quietly as they munched their hay. Slowly, Will made his way down the aisle, running his fingers along the smooth leather of the halters that hung from each ravenstag’s stall and rubbing the bristly softness of their noses. They huffed as he touched them, and one tried to stretch its tongue up to search his fingers for treats. He found himself smiling as he stroked them, happy to be around the calmness of animals again. He thought of his dogs, safe at home with Alana, and he sighed quietly. 

“This is an offshoot of the herd,” said Hannibal. He reached up to cup the ear of one of the beasts and stroke its velvet back. The deer seemed content to let the predator touch him, much to Will’s surprise. “They’re bred for riding and harness work. There are many, many more out in the woods—you’ll see.”

“You ride these?” Carefully, Will slid his hand from the face of the stag he was petting to its neck. He buried his fingers in the silky, raven ruff, marveling at the softness of the strange, feathery fur that made its mane. 

“It’s more a children’s hobby. They’re not as fast as horses, and they’re not good for sport.” 

“Where did they come from?” It was hard to imagine that these fairy-tale beasts were natural. 

“They were a gift from Jadvyga when Antonius and Elisabetta had their first child. She loosed a small herd into the woods, and they have been breeding ever since.” 

So, they were tainted with magic. Before Will could ask anything else about the strange deer, a bay draft horse in the stall next door poked its great head out and surprised him. “Oh!”

Hannibal laughed. “That’s Tonko. He’s the only horse we have on the estate currently. I’m surprised that he’s still alive, if I’m being honest. He must be quite old by now.” 

The horse nibbled at his jacket, shaking its head in disgust when he realized that it wasn’t edible. Hannibal searched through the various bins until he found the one that held grain; scooping up a handful, he approached Will and poured it into his cupped glove. Tonko didn’t hesitate to bury his lips into Will’s hands to greedily inhale the offered food. Will smiled and gave the old gelding an affectionate rub between the eyes. “He’s sweet.”

“Indeed. Shall we move on?” Hannibal asked. 

They walked back out into the crisp coolness. Hannibal told Will of kennels, which were being cleaned currently but they could certainly visit later. He described their dogs to him, black hounds whose bloodline boasted Borzoi and Doberman ancestors, among others. “Playful dogs,” Hannibal said, “But guard dogs as well.” 

He then guided them further away from the estate and towards the barren woods. Here he grew quiet, stiff, his posture not unlike Robert’s had been at the house. The air was beginning to wind itself tightly, the tension making it hum. Will felt the new mood deeply in his bones.

When the castle grew small in the distance, a grove of gnarled trees appeared. “The orchard,” Hannibal explained. “And back there, the vineyard. We brew our own wine and ales.” He went on to suggest that they have a bottle brought up to their room that night to sample, and then ushered Will into a thin copse of trees. Here, Hannibal grew silent, his face becoming sullen and drawn. He took Will’s hand in his own, his long fingers nearly wrapping around the entirety of his palm. The trees began to trickle away until they opened up to clearing, and then to a graveyard enclosed by an iron gate and rows of stiff, sentinel trees. Will knew that he had not been brought here by accident. The gate was frozen open and so they walked in, picking carefully around the graves so as not to disturb the dead. 

What terrible quiet, Will thought. He could feel many gazes on his skin, though if they belonged to the living or the dead he could not say. Hannibal brought him to a small plot that contained a single headstone. Reverently, as though he were stretching his fingers out to touch the relic of some god, Hannibal reached out to brush the snow from the dark granite as Will read the names, noting in particular the one etched into the stone beneath HANNIBAL VII and SIMONETTA.

MISCHA. 

“You never told me you had a sister,” he said very gently, squeezing Hannibal’s hand. 

“No,” Hannibal agreed softly. Will looked up from the grave to glance at him. The wendigo’s gaze was very far away, very vacant. Memories were being dredged up from the murky bottom of his mind, brought up from the cellars of his memory palace. “This is a story I should tell you,” he said. His voice was wooden. “This is a story I should tell you before you hear it from someone else.” 

Around them, the trees seemed to change. A deer bugled in the woods, and the cry’s last note sounded like a scream, or perhaps a sob. Something bloody and raw opened up in Will’s chest to match the sucking wound that Hannibal bore, the gash that he was about to tear open for Will; it dripped blood into the snow as Hannibal ripped words from his mouth. 

“The witch who made us is not always kind to us,” began the wendigo. The sun shifted in the sky and the light whirled like a pinwheel. Hannibal spoke, but Will was elsewhere. The same grove of trees wove their hands above them, twined their gnarled fingers together, but Will was somewhere nearly fifty years ago. Will smelled blood, and Hannibal smelled salt.

_She was cruel._

“She enjoys playing with the threads of our lives, just to remind us that she can,” Hannibal continued, voice tauter than a cello string. “She’s plucking at them now. She broke one when I was a child. I am not sure if she meant to, or if the old witch even surprised herself. Tuned her own instrument too tightly, it would seem.”

A hush had fallen over the woods. Somewhere, somewhere, far, far away came the crisp bark of a gunshot. Somewhere, somewhere, something died. 

“You were young,” Will murmured. “Young enough to not understand.”

“Not at the time.” A pause. “I still am not sure if I do now.” The wendigo’s mercury gaze cut up sharply to bore into Will. “You will meet Jadvyga. Perhaps you will understand her. Perhaps you will understand it.”

A cold breeze made flurries dance through the headstones. “Perhaps.”

The answer did not seem to satisfy Hannibal; Will imagined that little would in this moment. “She was riling up the townspeople. Spreading rumors. They were angry—perhaps they deserved to be. They were angry, but they did not act.”

Will could picture it, could picture her weaving through the town, an ethereal, venomous spirit. Rumors, rumors, rumors. They spread as quickly as milk in coffee, crackled and brewed in the snap of her cloaks when the wind harried them. Black words, blacker things, darker things. Moving shadows, mauling shadows, the soft whine of Mischa as her mother turned her away from her breast. “You’re too old for that now,” Simonetta chided her gently. Weaning was never easy. 

Will was struck by how clear the memory moved through his mind.

“Then the priest went missing.” 

_Then the fuckers ate him._

“And then the people grew livid.”

_The fuckers **ate** him!_

Hannibal was staring down at the headstone, looking like he wanted to swallow it whole. Will mulled over a missing detail within the story. Redacted, perhaps; it certainly was no more subtle than blocks of black type.

“And Jadvyga stirred and spiced their anger, laced it with knives and spells. She goaded them to act.”

_But did you eat him?_

A heavy, heavy pause. It dropped like a stone between them, landed with a thud. Something was lost here. From Will’s chest came a fresh gush of blood, warm and red and dripping sticky onto the snow. Mischa crying, hungry, not pleased with the food she was being offered, wanting something warmer, more filling. From the woods came another shrill cry, another stag’s challenge. It carried and fell into oblivion. The trees shivered, and Hannibal gnashed his teeth.

“And they did,” he continued, his voice beginning to waver; Will could not tell if it was with anger or sadness or some sharp mixture of the two. “And they stormed the estate…”

The scent of smoke now, somewhere far away.

“…and they lit it ablaze…”

A crack. 

“…and with inhuman wrath they killed the servants and staff, and then went for my family. We all donned our fiercer skins.”

_Quicker skins._

“My parents kept us all together until the band of invaders bore down on us. My father told us to run, and stayed behind to ward them off. I do not think he survived long, based on the sounds. We are not invincible, Will. Our hearts stop too when a bullet hits them.”

A terrifying, deafening noise. 

“It was that moment when I was separated from my mother. I panicked and chose a separate path when my father bellowed at us to go. She and Mischa fled deeper into the woods, while I ran towards the river.”

Will pictured Hannibal’s little trail of hoofprints as he galloped away from the gunshots and shouts. He imagined too the shrill scream of Simonetta when she realized that her little buck was no longer at her side, a sound only rivaled by the warbling cries of the little Mischa, her ears and tail pinned tightly to her body. 

“It became apparent after a while that I was not being chased.”

Guilty, guilty.

“Things grew quiet.”

Deathly quiet, quiet as snow. 

“My mother had not found me yet.”

Dead.

“So I set out searching for her. I never found her, Will. But I did find the body of Mischa, torn and bloody in the snow. They merely cut her throat, as if it were a waste to use bullets on something so small.” Hot rage was filling the air now, making Will nauseous. Hannibal’s eyes were bright and glowing, shining with mercury tears and harder than stones. He did not look half as fearsome when he was killing as he did now remembering the way Mischa’s red, red blood had sprayed onto the snow.

“It is one thing to kill two adult creatures, Will,” he choked out, his voice cracking. “It’s one thing to kill the beasts who hunt you. But the killing of children is only ever senseless, and to think of what she…” His jaw snapped shut with a clack; he didn’t dare to utter the thought. Will could not help but be relieved, for he knew that they were words tinged with darkness, words that would push his gurgling heart over the edge. Hannibal did not need to say them; Will already knew how they would feel when they struck home.

“Robert had been staying with us during this time. He found me after a short while; I remember seeing the shadow of his antlers on the snow and hoping it was my father. He did not say a word to me, merely picked me up and held me as my mother would on his back. He carried me far, far away from these bloody woods, far away from bodies and bones. As we ran, we heard the laughter of the hunters, the celebratory rounds fired off. We lived in the countryside for a few days, lived in silence, and Robert picked off one of the hunters and we ate only his body.” Hannibal did not mention how the meat tasted like ash, but Will knew. He could taste it in his own mouth.

For what felt like many minutes they stood there in silence, listening as a bird laughed in the trees above them. Hannibal’s eyes looked skyward. “I do not know if would have been therapeutic to see the bodies of my parents. I imagine not.” 

“It’s not,” Will murmured. “Leaves you feeling hollow.” Wet, too, like the bloated corpse of the deceased. Wet eyes, sodden heart, flooded lungs. 

A heavy and terrible silence fell over them again. At long last Hannibal sighed softly and then spoke, his voice hard, sharp: “I have not yet forgiven the parties involved, Will. My parents I can excuse; truly, I can. But Mischa…”

A shiver worked its way through Will’s spine. “I imagine you haven’t.” 

Silence, silence. Snow began to fall in fat flakes from the sky, landing gently on the headstones and trees, kissing the names that marked the dead, lining MISCHA in crystal white. Snow fell in the village too, on the roofs of houses, down the chimneys, where the flakes turned to steam. Somewhere, somewhere, a man opened the door of a pub, letting a flurry of flakes into the warm building to the ire of his drinking buddies. “Shut the fucking door,” a rasping voice snarled when the man dawdled, and with a bang the cold was banished back outside. The last flakes that snuck in tickled the floor and the wool of hanging scarves and the black antlers of Count Hannibal VII, which hung neatly on the wall, their pointed tips spreading outward like the pinions of crows. 

A low murmur started back up, spiked occasionally with howling laughter. Outside, the wind sobbed and cried and clawed at the doors, begging for entrance, but the patrons did not pay it any mind. They had once heard worse things, like the screams of children, of mothers. They were adept at ignorance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to make everyone wait so long! This semester has been so busy--I don't have any time to write. I'm home for break now, and so pleased that I can update again. That being said, I probably won't be able to update again until mid-May.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, kudoing, commenting, and for sticking with me through this little break! I hope you guys are enjoying this story.


	20. Into Town

XX

The story of Mischa stuck with Will. He often found her invading his nightmares, stepping out onto the black stage of his mind wearing a pretty red dress. Her hair would curl into little blonde ringlets above her shoulders. She would pose and recite a song that’s words he couldn’t understand, and when she finished there was always applause, though it wasn’t from him. He’d wake confused and would often rub at his stomach, trying to dissipate the sucking feeling of hollowness that would take root there. He didn’t tell Hannibal that he dreamt of his sister.

 

Will began to feel her presence in the household, as though her spirit was soaked into the wallpaper. Occasionally Hannibal would make fond, sad comments about memories he had of her in this room or that hallway, and though the wendigo didn’t seem particularly bothered by the recollections, they left Will feeling cold and made him view the beautiful, eerie house differently. He’d explore the many rooms, but he always felt as though he was being followed. He couldn’t shake Hannibal’s sister. Her ghost was persistent. 

 

Will found that he needed some time away from the man, if only to escape his sibling, whose presence trailed behind him at all times lazily, like a banner. He was grateful one morning when Hannibal kissed him goodbye and said that he was off to hunt with Robert; it was the time of year when the oldest of the ravenstags began to weaken and grey, and culling the herd was necessary to save the beasts from suffering and stock the wendigos’ pantry. He breathed a sigh of relief when the door clicked shut and Hannibal’s footsteps faded down the hallway. 

 

For an hour he lay in bed and shuffled through his thoughts, organizing his own memories and the phantom memories of Mischa into distinct camps. He thought about home, about his dogs, about Jack Crawford mulling over paperwork and Katz and Zeller and Price swapping stories over coffee. He separated the good—the memories of his coworkers, of his house—from the bad, which smelt of blood. 

 

Eventually, though, a feeling of laziness began to make his legs twitch under the duvet. Rising, he showered and dressed, pulling on a heather gray sweater with a shawl collar that had mysteriously ended up in his luggage, no doubt by Hannibal’s design. He then left the bedroom and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

 

If the house had a heart then the kitchen would be it, although it was a black organ, hollow and eerie. Gruesome foods aside, though, it was warm and cozy and bright, natural light flooded in from the windows. The walls were stone and decorated with various tools and pots that hung from hooks and sprigs of dried herbs. Contrasting the rustic weariness of the stone and the cast iron pans were a handful of modern, stainless steel appliances that were tucked unassumingly into the corners of the large room. A long table sat in the center of the room, littered with bowls and lumps of dough and other parts of meals waiting to be cooked or glazed. The room smelled sweet when Will stepped in; the leftover aromas from some sort of breakfast creation wafted in the air. 

 

He always enjoyed visiting the kitchen because it was often full of the Lecter’s staff. While some stirred sauces in pans, others leaned against the walls sipping from cups of coffee and tea, gossiping, laughing. Will felt close to these women, perhaps because of their shared humanity, but also because they allowed him to use his skills as profiler in a purer, less noxious way. He’d watch them and listen to their conversations, and eventually he’d be able to stitch together pieces of their lives. Matilda had had a child at only 16. Agnes wasn’t interested in marriage, and certainly wasn’t interested in God either. Harriet’s family couldn’t afford to send her to college despite her brilliance, so she practically lived in the Lecter’s library. Ausra just wanted a steady job with good pay. It was easy, Will often thought, to think that the Lecter’s were doing a great service for these girls. He knew, though, that in a way these girls were doing a favor for the family of monsters by keeping their secrets, tolerating their lifestyle, and ensuring that their house could be their sanctuary. The relationship between the wendigos and their help intrigued Will quite a bit. There was a strange, uneven balance between them. 

 

A woman—the others called her Lili, he thought—looked up from her work when he entered, her face a little sour. “You’re late for breakfast, if that’s what you’re looking for,” she groused, wiping her hands on her apron. 

 

Will shrugged. “Just coffee then, if you have it.”

 

A steaming mug was thrust into his hands. From the corner of the room rose a voice.

 

“Mr. Graham! Over here.” Glancing over, Will saw that Lady Murasaki and Chiyoh were sitting at a small table, sipping at coffee and spreading jam onto flaking biscuits. The lady of the house beckoned him over with a flap of her wrist. A polite and practiced smile made her face warm. He found himself hesitating at the woman’s offer, shy suddenly. He was overcome with the desperate need to impress this woman in the same way that one is overwhelmed to impress the parents of a new partner. He was aware that much of his reputation while he stayed at this estate would likely depend on her opinion. Such was her power in the house; she was a priest, and this was her temple. 

 

But balking was rude. He walked over, and Murasaki extended her hand. Will wasn’t sure if he was supposed to shake it or bring it to his lips in gentlemanly fashion, so he settled with giving it a firm squeeze. “I’m Murasaki,” she supplied, as if Will didn’t already know. “Robert’s wife.” Then, surprisingly, she added: “You and I have much in common.” 

 

He didn’t know what to say to that. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he replied somewhat stiffly. Chiyoh looked quietly bemused.

 

“You can have some of our breakfast if you’d like,” Murasaki offered. 

 

Will picked up one of the biscuits, still warm, and reached for the small jar of purple jam that sat on the serving tray; he wasn’t sure what the preserve was made out of, but it accompanied most breakfasts, and Will found that he had grown slightly obsessed with the sweet taste and gritty texture. 

 

“I must admit, regardless of what the others say, I find you quite brave.” Murasaki was staring at him as he bit into the biscuit, a thoughtful, warm looking passing over her face. “And I don’t blame Hannibal for revealing himself either. Robert may be upset, but he was no different. He showed me what he was before we were engaged.” She shrugged and took a sip of her own drink. Will blinked slowly, surprised at how candid the woman was being. He felt as if he had known her for many years.

 

“I might’ve died if Hannibal hadn’t helped me,” Will said after a moment. “I’m very grateful for that.”

 

“Yes! I’m sure. Again, I see nothing wrong with what he did. Robert’s just crabby with all of the family under one roof. And the others…” She trailed off, eyes rolling to glance towards the door. “Well, they are how they are. It’s unfortunate in a way that your first visit here is when they are all here too. I’m sure their drama will sully your vacation quite a bit. Hannibal would’ve been better off leaving you at home.” 

 

Will was about to let those words sting him, pry open the strange brew of loneliness and anxiety that had bubbled over as soon as he had landed in Lithuania, but Murasaki quickly added, “But I’m glad he didn’t. It’s nice to have a new face here. It’s nice to have more humans here.” And with those words a great wave of sorrow flooded over Will, a feeling that stemmed not from he but from she, a wall of salt and tears that crashed into his chest and made him feel hollow. He peered at Murasaki over the lip of his mug, searching, wondering, weighing the value of her words. She smiled politely as she so often did, as he imagined she would if one of these beasts were gnawing at her arm. She smelled of water suddenly. Of salt. 

 

With a clang Lili dropped a bowl onto the counter, breaking the trance, drying this strange woman’s sorrow. Will felt refreshed as the heaviness was lifted from his body. “Anyways,” Murasaki said, “You should come with Chiyoh and I to the town. Hannibal’s out with Robert, yes? Come, then. It’s a nice town when the locals aren’t shooting daggers at us with their eyes, and we need to buy a gift for Peto. His antlers are coming in—it’s quite the occasion for them.”

 

Will smiled a little. “Their first welcome into adult society?”

 

“Precisely. Truthfully, I’m a little grateful that Peto doesn’t have any other antlered cousins he can wrestle and joust with here. Don’t get me wrong, the girls will scrap too, but at least they don’t have anything sharp to poke each other’s eyes with. Wendigo childhoods are tearful occasions, Will. Too many injuries!” Murasaki shook her head. “I believe Chiyoh and I were planning on leaving soon, if that’s alright with you.”

 

“Perfect.” 

 

“Lovely. Although…” Chiyoh and Murasaki exchanged a look. “I have a strange request of you, Will Graham.”

 

Will shivered. Something about the woman’s tone made a great and heavy feeling of uneasiness make a home in his gut. “Alright.”

 

“We would prefer it if you covered yourself so that no one can see your face. There has been…” She paused, fishing for a word. “… _unpleasantness_ in the town. It will…well, Will, let me just be blunt with you—you were an FBI officer, after all, you surely revel in danger. It will be safer if the people do not know who you are. Much safer.”

 

 _You surely revel in danger._ The uneasy feeling swelled, burst, and oozed bile into his stomach. He did not revel in danger. Danger, especially as of late, made his hands clammy and his head sore. He felt so safe by Hannibal’s side, so anchored; there was something so comforting about having a beast that could rend your nightmares to pieces as a lover. But he did not feel safe anymore standing with these two women. Will felt as if the floor had been sawed out from under his feet. “Of course,” he found himself saying, though he didn’t mean it, didn’t want to say it. Desperately he wanted to crawl back into bed with Hannibal at his side and spend the morning in comfortable, weighting warmth.

 

“You’ll need a scarf and hat for your face,” said Chiyoh. “Gloves for your hands. A bulky jacket.” A disguise. A mask. What would these people do to him?

 

“You can borrow things from the coat closet,” Murasaki suggested. “There are some older things of Robert’s in there that he has yet to get rid of. Come, I’ll help you pick things out. I can tell you the things he hasn’t worn in many years, the things no one will recognize. Chiyoh, go get the cart ready.”

 

They left the kitchen and he and Murasaki walked to the foyer. There they found the coat room, brimming with the Lecter’s furs and leathers. Will’s heart began to race as Murasaki slid open a closet built into one of the walls and began to sift through the various articles within, pulling things out, handing a few to him. But suddenly, a fur-lined hat in hand, she paused, her shoulders sagging, and turned to face him. She seemed brittle and hollow as she frowned at him, prone to break. “I’m sorry about this,” she said softly, her eyes not meeting his. “I just—I—do you understand?”

 

He thought he might. He nodded. 

 

“Okay.” She breathed deep and handed him the hat. 

 

Slowly, reverently, he began to put the layers on, dressing as the doomed do, stalling the swing of the axe. He starting by wrapping a garish purple scarf around his neck until it swelled out like a scratchy, woolen mane. Over this he layered a jacket that was dyed the deepest black he had ever seen; it was missing a button, but otherwise was a very fine coat, albeit large on him. Reaching down the front, he pulled the scarf up so that it covered his mouth, and Murasaki nodded in approval. Then he pulled the leather gloves on, and then the old ushanka (which, Will noted with a smile, seemed to match Hannibal’s), and then he adjusted everything once more so that everything, save for his eyes, was hidden. Murasaki smiled a sad, bemused smile and then bundled herself up. She plucked a little silk bag from the table in the foyer and then ushered Will outside, where Chiyoh waited with the sleigh. 

 

The stag blew out his nose as the pair approached, his breath curling in the air. Murasaki and Will climbed abroad, and when they were settled Chiyoh snapped the reins to urge the beast forward and the sleigh began to rattle down the snowy road towards the town.

 

“As I said earlier,” Murasaki said to Will, “The first set of antlers is a _very_ important event for them. It’s like losing your baby teeth, you see. A little passage of childhood. It’s funny though, because they will just be little nubs until he sheds them for the first time. Have you seen young deer where you live, Will? Yes, they’re just like that—little bumps, nothing more. It’ll be years before his are anything like Robert’s—his are quite large, as he’s the oldest, and the most powerful of the bunch. And yes, if Hannibal didn’t tell you—they do shed their antlers occasionally. Not every year, mind you, but perhaps every decade or so.” She smiled. “You know, based on what Robert was telling me a few nights ago, Hannibal might be due to shed his soon. I imagine he’ll be adding another point to his rack too. They look a little funny without antlers,” she whispered to Will with a soft laugh, “Though don’t tell them that. They get grumpy. Robert said that his head gets quite itchy when they’re growing back.”

 

“So,” Murasaki continued, “It’s traditional to buy little gifts for the little one who’s growing the antlers. It’s the same for a girl’s first estrus. Give them gifts so they forget their discomfort.” She laughed; it was hollow. 

 

Will thought back to his childhood, to tearful vaccinations, the soft words of a nurse, visits to the ice cream shop with his dad. Pain and sugar all tied into one.

 

“I’ve been told that Peto has quite the sweet tooth, so I thought that we’d stop by the bakery.” The sleigh lurched and dragged down the road. “If there’s anything you need while we’re out, Will, please feel free to mention it. It’s a nice little town, busy, and anything that you need that we may not be able to find can be brought in, we have a connection in the general store…” And then Murasaki began to list the people of the town and what their trades were; she focused on their allies, their closest friends, and described the favors done for the Lecters in the past. As she spoke, Will began to weave together pictures of the people they would meet. Despite Murasaki’s promises of friendship, he could not help but paint them as suspicious people, people used to hardship, people who eyed the castle above their town warily. The winters were cold, after all, but the beasts never seemed to mind. He noted that Murasaki went on and on about the good qualities of the people she was describing. There was no gossip, only praise for their work, for their children, for the times they did this or that. Will filed this observation away in his mind. 

 

After a while carts began to pass them on the road, and occasionally a sputtering automobile would wheeze by as well. The roads widened and buildings began to huddle at their edges and soon the town swelled to existence. The streets were not busy this time of the day, but those who were out shopping and chatting turned to stare when the deer-drawn cart pulled into town. They recognized the lady of the house sitting in the onyx sleigh and while some averted their eyes, others offered warm smiles, curtsies, and tipped hats. Children reached out to run their fingers through the silky mane of the ravenstag, who didn’t seem to mind the hands grasping at him. Their lips would move as if in prayer; they were casting wishes, Murasaki explained in a murmur, as if they could harness some bit of the deer’s magic. The cart pushed through town, parting crowds, earning smiles and stares and sneers all the way. Will huddled down into the ruff of his scarf, exhaling against the wool.

 

Chiyoh steered the cart towards the edge of the town where horses and mules stood in lines, chewing hay and dozing while they waited for their owners to return. A pair of young men leaned against the empty hitching posts that jutted crookedly from the ground; they perked up noticeably when they saw the black deer approaching, straightening their backs and dusting off their clothing. Chiyoh steered the stag toward one of the empty poles. One of the boys waited with a braided lead rope to tie the deer off; the other had darted away into a building, though Will had not seen him go. 

 

Murasaki began to gather her layers and bags up. “Here we are. Chiyoh, we’ll be back soon. Come now.” She gestured for Will to follow her and then slid off the cart, accepting the outstretched hand of the stable boy to steady herself. Will stepped down after her, offering him only a curt nod. Always a step behind, he followed Murasaki down the road. The frozen dirt crunched underneath their feet as they breached the center of town; Murasaki took quick steps as if she were being chased. 

 

Whereas Murasaki had been chatty and open on the ride down to the town, she was sullen now, her face a mask of cool indifference. She would smile at people if they smiled at her but she did little else to acknowledge the townspeople’s presence, and she did nothing to acknowledge the presence of the shadow behind her. Only once did she stop to engage someone, a woman who appeared to make her living selling dyed yarns and strings; they appeared to be friends based on the animated tone of their conservation. As they chatted, Will cast his attention out toward the people who passed them on the street. If he listened closely he could pull their conservations out from the dull murmur of the town.

 

One in particular caught his attention; it was between two men, both of which were sipping from metal mugs of coffee. “Shame about that guy who passed through here last week,” the taller one said.

 

“What happened? I didn’t hear about that. The troubadour, right? Twitchy guy?” the other replied.

 

“He vanished about a week ago. He’s gone.”

 

The shorter man didn’t seem bothered. “He probably just left town.”

 

“Maybe. But he didn’t take any of his stuff with him.” 

 

Something dropped in Will’s gut. He could sense where this conversation was going and it made him feel uneasy. Memories of his first dinner at the Lecter estate were racing through his mind, and he thought of Hannibal’s insistence that he be fed a vegetarian dish, he thought of the meat on the plates…

 

“Huh.”

 

Strange, Will thought, that the wendigos’ prey were flesh and blood people that others knew, others loved. Strange to weave history around these corpses. 

 

“Beasts got him,” the taller one said. His voice was firm; there was no question, no doubt in his mind. 

 

“I guess so. That’s a shame.” And they left it at that and parted ways.

 

Will turned away from them and focused his attention on Murasaki’s conversation. Something was crawling up his throat, constricting and tickling like a suppressed cough. He did not want to think about what those men had said. Their nonchalance frightened him.

 

Murasaki and the woman were finishing up; after they said their goodbyes, Murasaki resumed her walk toward the center of town, a bemused little smile on her face. “Almost there,” she said. They turned down another street. People, people everywhere, their eyes cold, their eyes warm, their eyes wandering away. Murasaki led them to a shop where trays of baked goods steamed the windows, lined with holly and silver cloth for the holidays. The bell hanging on the door jingled accusingly as she pushed it open. 

 

A wiry young woman stood at the counter precariously balancing a tower of cookies on a glass stand. She started when she saw who her customers were, causing a cookie to drop to the wood floor and crumble. “Hello, Lady,” she said very softly. Immediately she put her little silver tongs down and wiped her hands on her apron.

 

“Good morning,” Murasaki replied; she seemed oblivious to the fact that she spooked the girl. “We’ll just be browsing for a minute.”

 

The girl nodded. Will eyed her curiously from beneath his layers. He couldn’t pinpoint if her anxiety rose from fear or respect. Both, perhaps.

 

Murasaki cast a critical gaze on the plethora of pastries that sat in trays and jars on the shop’s counters. “James and Zuri—Peto’s parents, as you know—wish their son didn’t have such an affinity for chocolate. They’re worried he’ll ignore other food groups in favor of sweets.” They walked the perimeter of the shop, eyeing each tray and plate. One in particular caught Will’s eye—on it sat a row of sugar cookie deer, painted with black frosting, their antlers made of black licorice. Red collars lined some of their necks.

 

Murasaki made her selections, and the girl brought all of the sweets to the counter and wrapped them each in paper. The girl counted out the money carefully when Murasaki paid, her thin fingers pulling each coin towards her, mouthing the amounts. Nerves made her motions quick.

 

Suddenly, after the last coin was counted, the girl’s head snapped up. “You should go to the square, Lady,” the words tumbled from her mouth. “They’re selling things there. They’re selling weapons.”

 

And suddenly Murasaki’s face hardened, grew pale, lost all life and kindness. She stared at the girl, saying nothing for a minute, slowly plucking her purchases from the counter and tucking them in some pocket hidden in her many layers. “Weapons?” She repeated at last, the word sticking to her gums.

 

The girl nodded. A tremor rattled her left hand. 

 

Murasaki frowned. “Well, thank you,” she said after a moment’s silence. Another coin was taken from her purse and placed onto the counter. 

 

They left the poor girl at the counter as red was beginning to creep into her face and tears into her eyes. “Murasaki..?” Will ventured softly as they left. He recognized an ominous “they” when he heard one.

 

“Shush. No talking.”

 

And so he fell silent. And so they walked to the square.

 

Her steps grew slow as they approached; feigning nonchalance, Will noted. And as they approached a voice began to rise up from the din, sing-song almost, gruff and cheery.

 

“Guns and knives here, sharpened for free, polished daily! Protect yourself against whatever may be lurking outside your house!” A weapons stand had taken up residence in the middle of the square. The pop-up shop bristled with blades and axes and shotguns and rifles, the metal of which winked in the sun, enticed one to buy. Atop the stand was a crest that featured a snarling boar prominently, its crude teeth jutting out from its gaping jaw. Murasaki cast it a sideways glance, her face a mask. Will could not gauge what she was thinking. He too looked at the shop, making eye contact with the seller, snapping his gaze down quickly. A crooked smile lit the man’s face. He said nothing to Murasaki, but his eyes followed her, followed Will. They did a quick loop through the square, pretending to browse, and then left just as the shopkeeper was shouting, “Molson Verger buys from us—you should too!”

 

“We have to go,” Murasaki whispered hurriedly then, frightened. “We really have to go.” 

 

A pig squealed in the square somewhere. Will shivered, and followed as a shadow would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, sorry about that wait everyone! Last year at college was really, really hectic for me, particularly last semester. Unfortunately I ended up pretty burnt out, and still haven't really gotten back into my groove. But we finally have an update that's been 4 months in the making!
> 
> While I'd love to be able to say that the next chapter will arrive quicker, I don't want to make any promises I can't keep. But rest assured that I least hope to update every few months. This story is the product of a lot of hard work, and I like my little world I've built. I have no plans on abandoning it. Besides, we're starting to get into the good stuff now. We're about halfway done with this story! 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading and commenting. Your kind words mean the world to me. I appreciate your patience too, and hope you all are having a good summer!


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